


A Black Rose

by AugustStories



Series: Redemption Verse [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherhood, Death Eaters, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, First War with Voldemort, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Good Regulus Black, Horcrux Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Snape, POV Regulus Black, Redemption, Regulus Black Lives, Regulus Black-centric, Second War with Voldemort, The Dark Circle, minor pairings in background I won't tag, other canon characters might appear, some characters only turn up in flashbacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21954742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: As the war falls upon Great Britain once more in his lifetime Regulus Black finds himself faced with new enemies and threats to a magical community who still hadn't fully recovered from the tyranny of Voldemort. Together with old friends and new he will have to brace himself against the storm that it coming for them. Fortunately a surprise brings along the strongest ally he could have wished for in those troubled times.--"I left because I had to. I had lost Regulus, I had lost my friends. My daughter was safer without me in her life, and just like that I had nothing left to fight for anymore. That's what everyone is thinking anyway, and all of that is true, in a way but the real truth is more complicated. I left because I had to, because in that moment leaving meant I could keep on fighting. Leaving meant I wouldn't die for nothing, that I had this one small chance of doing something good in my life. And you are standing exactly on that edge I was on back then. Leave and fight, or die for nothing."
Relationships: Evan Rosier & Original Character(s), Evan Rosier/Original Character(s), Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Regulus Black & Evan Rosier, Regulus Black & Original Female Character(s), Regulus Black & Original Male Character(s), Regulus Black & Remus Lupin, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Regulus Black/Original Female Character(s), Sirius Black & Evan Rosier, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Redemption Verse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1389649
Comments: 42
Kudos: 90





	1. Cover Art + Preface

**Author's Note:**

> It's sequel time!
> 
> If you read this before you read the previous parts in this series you just spoilered yourself a great amount of their content. A lot of things would make more sense if you read the other stories in this series first.
> 
> If you are all caught up, let me welcome you to the final part in this Redemption Arc.
> 
> We have war and we need to fight, it's just a question of on how many fronts will we have to fight?
> 
> Enjoy!

This beautiful cover art was made by one of my best friends. And you can find Tess [**here**](https://teresa-sc.tumblr.com/) to see more of her amazing art work.

**1981 – Alive But Broken**

**Late Summer of 1981, Sixteen Miles North of Dover**

Evan watched the waves licking the shoreline in an almost tender touch, moved only by a light evening breeze and the natural movement of the sea. At the horizon fishermen were turning their ships and boats back towards the harbor in Dover, a well-oiled machine that worked perfectly undisturbed from the war that was being fought in their very country. Right under their noses without them having the slightest idea.

Behind his back, hidden beyond the sheer impregnebable thickness of the forest, the sun was setting, turning the sky from a dark blue to burning gold and orange and then pinkish red. Leaves rustled in the wind from time to time, a bush shook from the movement of a small animal but aside from that Evan Rosier was alone.

He was as alone as he had been ever since that fateful day in November of '79 when his father had asked him to sit and had then explained that Regulus Black had gone missing and was considered dead, killed by Order members presumably as Walpurga Black was fixating on.

Everything that had followed afterwards, everything even leading up to the moment of him sitting on this beach, it had transpired as if in a fever dream. Ending in the crescendo of today where Evan Rosier had watched himself die. Even now it felt unreal. Standing up on that rooftop, watching the fight below, watching the mask and hood get blown off the smallest of the three tall black cloaked Death Eaters and his own face starring with disgust at the foe, Head Auror Alistair Moody.

All while Evan himself had remained safely up on the rooftop of an old hotel there in the outskirts of Soho. The genius strike hadn't taken much talent off of him. It had almost been ridiculously easy, though admittedly Cousin Davis had never been the sharpest tool in the shed. And as Evan had learned even as a child already, the not so sharp could easily be formed and shaped, as well as led astray.

Davis had been consumed with fanatic admiration for the Dark Lord as well as for Evan's own fanatic older brothers. So when Evan had approached him over a supposedly brilliant trick of having Moody believe the wanted name was right in front of him while the real Evan – and honestly also the best fighter among the current Rosier generation – would sneak up from behind, Davis agreed without hesitation and accepted the Polyjuice Potion.

Only Evan had never snuck up from behind.

He had come to watch himself die.

For only that was how he would be able to keep living.

And now as he sat here on this beach that was filled only with memories of two best friends enjoying peace and friendship, his heavy heart knew that though this plan may have worked, he wasn't really alive. Come midnight he would grab onto the old bucket standing in front of him and he would leave Great Britain forever, carrying with him only a bag with the most dearest of possessions.

Some pictures, a sock of the daughter he would never get to call his own and a book read so many times the spine was already coming loose, all fond memories of a boy who had died even before his name had. Those easy times long gone. He didn't even take his wand, identification of the corpse had made it necessary to part with it, instead he carried Davis' now. It worked for him, even if not optimally so, but where he was going now, he would have to lay low on magic anyway.

Nothing was ever going to be the same.

But then again, that had been clear the day Regulus' death had truly settled within him as he watched a coffin get lowered into the ground. Evan the boy had died that day, his heart, his innocence had been stripped away from him as the days without answers to his questions continued. Not getting any closure had driven him crazy and made him not only reckless but also more curious than allowed, causing him to stumble upon this horrible secret.

A last moment's decision had had him hiding the cup he had procured months ago now into the cave back in the forest. Blood magic would hide it from all but the one able to access it next to Evan's own family. Marculus would figure out what to do, and until then he would keep it safe. Evan had no doubt that even if Barty might find out about what Evan had done, he would never be able to solve the riddle leading to the forest here. And Evan also by now doubted that Barty would survive the war, or at least not end up in Azkaban. He had gotten too reckless and too desillusioned.

So there Evan sat, awaiting darkness and the stars, one last time he wanted to see them from the very beach where Regulus had first shown him how the moon was hiding his namesake so very often.

One last time Evan wanted to feel the silent evening that this place had given them so many times.

Tomorrow he would board a ferry in Marseille, bound for Venice and there he would disappear in the bustling tourist crowds to become no one. No one with nothing more to lose. No one with no regrets and no grief and no blame on shoulders that would still never be unburdened from them.

Evan Rosier was dead, killed by Alistair Moody in revenge for the murder of Benjy Fenwick, and no one would ever know the full truth about any of those events.

Evan Rosier was also alive, sitting on a beach, thinking of times long gone and best friends lost, awaiting midnight.

Alive but broken.


	2. Prologue

**1994 – A Path to Redemption Revisited**

A few days after Adrienna had appeared in St.Petersburg and surprised him with news that Evan had wished he would never get to hear again, he found himself setting feet down upon Grimmaudplace Street for the first time since the day of Regulus' fake funeral. Almost fifteen years had passed since that rainy day, and so much had changed in both of their lives.

He had spent seven years believing his best friend had died at the hands of Voldemort for having discovered his atrocious secrets. And then he had spent eight years believing that it was better for everyone if he remained hidden, that Regulus deserved a life free of any reminders to a difficult past. And everything that Adrienna had written or told him over the years had proved to him that Regulus had been building a life for himself, had finally been doing what he wanted and not what his family had dictated him to do.

Regulus was happy.

And Evan didn't want to jeopardize that.

Yet, there he was, slowly following Adrienna out of the park, hood pulled over his head and deep into his face, for secrecy's sake as much as for protection against the rain. He was a dead man, and if anyone saw him now who couldn't be talked to first, he was quickly going to become a hunted man again. The houses across the street were lit up, despite it being the middle of the day, the dark rain clouds had turned it dark and gloomy.

Grimmaudplace Number 12 looked unchanged upon a first glance, it still looked remarkably darker than the ones adjacent to it on either side but once you looked closer you saw the heaps of differences. The big changes that made you quickly realize this wasn't the same nightmarish House of Black anymore that it had once been. The windows showed life, a happy life, colorful drapes and curtains where they had previously just been shut with whatever dark fabrics had been turned into drape like shutters almost.

Some windows showed flower pots now as well, light was on in at least three of them, one window up high, the window that Evan knew had once belonged to Regulus' childhood room, was clustered with stickers, the kind that muggle children often used to decorate their rooms. The small frontyard was in full bloom with several colorful flowers, everything was well cared for, the high grown hedge that had once sheltered the whole yard from outside views was completely gone, a new white fence installed in its place.

The gate was half open, a small children's bike was lying on the cobbled path leading up to the steps and the front door, and when Adrienna got fed up with his hesitation and dragged him closer, Evan could make out several other toys that had been abandoned in some corner or other of the yard, dinosaur figurines and a bright blue ball. Alone this little part of Regulus' old new home showed more of being an actual home than the entire place had back when Evan had still been a regular visitor.

His feet froze when Adrienna slipped past the gate and she only turned around a few steps later when she couldn't hear him following anymore.

"Evan?" She called his name, quietly but also still slightly annoyed, no one caged Adrienna into the rain unless they wanted to suffer. "Waiting any longer isn't going to make it any easier." It was easy for her to say that, she didn't have parts of a life lost currently residing in that house, entirely unaware of who was standing outside. And then before he had even worked up the nerves to keep stepping forward, too raw on the inside at the moment to even think of a snappy comment he could sent back in Adrienna's direction, the front door was suddenly jerked open and a little boy grinned at them.

Or more, he was grinning at Adrienna. Evan could only stare, breaths knocked out of his chest.

Black hair was a mess all over that small head, blue eyes were glowing with happiness, jeans torn over his knees, green shirt plastered with color stains.

This was the happiest child he had ever seen in this house.

This was Reg's son, the kid not of his blood but one he had seen grow up at his side anyway, the child he deserved to have so much.

"Auntie Adri," the little boy called out happily and then he scowled when he was pulled backwards by a gentle hand that Evan would recognize anywhere.

"Master Jack, one has told you again and again. Master Jack is not to open the door on his own," Kreacher grumbled at the boy who only kept smiling at him even though he stepped back to let Kreacher take his place. Kreacher huffed and turned around, looking towards Adrienna. "Kreacher is very sorry but Master has made it very clear that Master Jack is not to open the door alone in these times."

"A very good decision," Adrienna agreed with him and stepped forward, dropping her umbrella when she reached the three steps that were already covered by the house's roof. "And Jackie, you should listen to your Papa and your Mama, you never know who could be the door."

"But I saw from window!" Little Jack argued from behind Kreacher, going up on his tip-toes to really get a good lock at them again, "look, Auntie brought a friend."

"Can we come in, Kreacher, the weather is dreadful and I have a lot of things to talk about with Reg," Adrienna asked it politely, threw a look over to him again and Evan finally managed to set one foot in front of the other to come closer. Kreacher eyed him for a very long moment, with how deep he had pulled the hood into his face, the houseelf wouldn't see anything though and hence suspicion rose in those dark eyes.

"I will announce you to Master," Kreacher still decided to let trust for Adrienna rule for the moment and stepped back to let them inside, Evan felt like the walls were immediately closing in on him.

Drying spells quickly took care of any unpleasantness left over from the rain and little Jack bounced over to Adrienna the moment the front door was closed again, Kreacher snapped himself away. As Adrienna and Jack greeted each other and she was presented with a complaint over the weather from a little boy who only wanted to go outside, Evan took a moment to look around.

On the inside now, everything looked in such stark contrast to the darkness he had once known, every corner was filled with light and the feeling of home. Pictures on the walls, moving and unmoving, old Black ancestors and other magical paintings surrounded by magical and non-magical photos of a little family and their friends.

It warmed his heart, it warmed the many parts of his heart that had always been so worried for the best friend he hadn't returned to immediately after hearing he wasn't actually dead. How many times had he felt guilty for it and how many times had he told himself that it was for the better, that he was protecting Regulus with it?

Now that time had run out.

He was back because their world was at war once again and this time he wouldn't wait until a too late moment to start acting right. He could make a difference, Adrienna was right, he just had to cross over some difficult waters first until he reached that point.

There was no telling how Regulus would react, Evan could only hope for the best, for the smallest understanding.

Upstairs a door closed, steps could be heard walking down a corridor and then they started down the stairs, and just a few seconds later, with him still being very much out of sight, Evan could hear Regulus' voice again for the first time in fifteen years. Older for sure but it was still him.

"Adri, I wasn't really expecting you," Regulus called down the stairs, "the girls are still at the Fawleys and Liv won't be home from work until at least another hour." Evan could feel how he was suddenly holding his breath, heart pounding in his chest, hands sweating as the steps came down further and further. And then Regulus rounded into the bottom floor and froze on the last step of the staircase, hand twitching for what was surely a wand as he eyed the still hooded and hidden Evan standing right next to where Adrienna was hugging his son. "Adrienna, what's the meaning of this?"

"We need to talk," Adrienna began with a smile, setting Jack down on the ground again, completely unfaced in sight of Regulus' visible shock and mistrust. "The three of us."

"I don't like seeing strangers in my home," Regulus deadpanned and there was a cold protectiveness in his eyes, he was no longer a skinny little boy who was pressured into doing so many things that weren't good for him. He was no longer someone who hid in people's shadows. "And I would think you'd understand that considering who is living in this house. Jack, are you done with your drawing for Mama yet?"

"No, Papa," Jack sing-songed, completely oblivious to the tention that had grown within the corridor suddenly, Regulus made a wave towards the living room and Jack ran off with a clumsy skip in his steps.

"What's this all about now, Adrienna? You vanished for days again and then you turn up here with some stranger and..."

Fed up with the panic building in Regulus' voice, Evan finally brought up the courage to reach up and pull his hood back. Regulus went deadly quiet and unmoving right away, for a long long moment he didn't even seem to breathe but then something ugly crashed over his features and with four long steps he had crossed the distance between them. A wand got whipped out and Evan was suddenly pushed up against the wall at his back with magic and a hand on his chest, fingers fisted into his jacket.

And the wand pointed right at his throat.

Blue eyes were glowering dangerously and Evan knew he had to act calmly now because even after they had been apart for nearly half their lives, he still knew this man so well. He knew when the line in Regulus' head was crossed and he knew this had to look like an absolute crime to him.

"How dare you!" Regulus snarled into his face, Evan was still taller than him but Regulus wasn't a skinny little twig anymore. "How dare you use that face against me! To come into my home with his face! Show me who you are! Drop this glamour instantly!" Adrienna had shook herself free from the shock she had fallen into when Regulus had lurched forward and she was pulling at his arm now, to no avail, Regulus barely budged an inch.

"Reg, it's me."

"Don't for a second think you can fool me with your sweet talk! Drop this act!" He was shaking with anger, his eyes showed wounds being torn open in his heart and Evan felt awful. Slowly, oh so carefully he brought his hands up and curled them each around one of Regulus' wrists.

"It's me. I know this doesn't make a lick of sense but it's me," Evan insisted, keeping his voice calm, trying to break through that pain and anger and hurt clouding blue eyes in front of him. When he felt the expected pressure on his mind, he just dropped his defenses and let Regulus in, let him forst around his head as much as he wanted to, he had nothing to hide, not from Regulus. Not anymore.

A few seconds later, Regulus gasped and pushed away from him, stumbling back until his back hit the opposite wall, eyes wide with shock and disbelief now.

"It can't be, this is wrong, this can't be," Regulus was muttering it under his breath and with his hands still raised, Evan slowly stepped forward.

"It is. It's real, Reg. I'm real," Evan softly told him and reached for trembling hands, gently curling his own around them. "It was the only way I could hide the horcrux. Look at it, Reg, look at it." Regulus' eyes were wild but he still had enough focus left to dive back into Evan's mind, to search for the memories that Evan helped him find, faking his death, hiding the horcrux in the cave, getting away. "It's me."

"Evan."

"Hey, Reggie."

Not a breath passed between those words and Regulus lurching forward again, this time to throw his arms around him. Evan let himself fall into the crushing hug with just as much strength. Regulus pressed his face against his shoulder, hands grasping at him so hard that Evan could feel it through three layers of clothing. He didn't exactly do it much differently, eyes closed, face resting against the top of Regulus' head, arms certainly squeezing him too much.

But neither of them cared in that moment.

Fifteen years.

\--

"I can't believe this is happening," Regulus gasped when he pulled back again, his eyes roaming over Evan's face, they had both grown older. "How? How can this be real? They said the body was cursed so bad it was almost unrecognisable but they were still determined it was you. Evan, how are you alive?" Regulus' hands were still shaking but he was nevertheless capable of throwing a warning look towards some of the whispering portraits.

Kreacher had returned as well and he was looking at Evan with wide unbelieving eyes from Adrienna's side.

"It's a story we might better tell sitting," Evan proposed for his own exhausted self but also for Regulus' nerves. Regulus blinked and then shook his head as if to clear his mind. Evan reached out and squeezed one of Regulus' shoulders again. "I'm sorry but I couldn't tell you sooner. I needed to protect you. I needed to protect all of you, most of all Sarena and my father." He could quickly see how that struck home with Regulus and he wondered how much Adrienna had left out when she had told him about the last months.

"If you staged your death for the same I vanished then all is forgiven." Regulus told him and it shook Evan's heart how much trust there still was despite so many many years apart. When he had vanished, he had still thought Regulus to be dead, but there had still been a decade that had passed since he knew the truth, but he just hadn't been able to come home.

"The horcrux?"

"There was only one way to not get discovered by _him_." Regulus took the words right out of his mouth, they were still standing in the middle of the corridor. Kreacher had walked over and Evan had gently pushed a hand over long ears, like he had done it dozens of times in the past. "My tale is a long one, too. Marc is the only one so far who knows all the details... but... is this safe, Evan? You being here? What if anyone sees you? They're not watching my house but there are enough people nowadays who pop in here unannounced. My brother and his boyfriend might not react so welcoming."

"I'm sure Lupin will listen first and I'd like to see Sirius try anything," Adrienna mentioned casually and then walked off into the living room already, giving them a moment alone.

"I would certainly get in trouble when I'm being seen by the wrong people but it might be time to stand in for my mistakes." Evan explained it and Regulus smiled, there was nothing haunted about it anymore, that frightened overwhelmed boy had grown into a man who knew true happiness. "Adrienna said that the danger has reached critical mass and that Stevan is right in it?"

"That's one way of putting it," Regulus told him and gave a heavy sigh, Kreacher pressed his head against his knee. "They call themselves the Dark Circle." Evan winced, it was never a good sign when they gave themselves omnious sounding names. "And Steven is for a lack of a better term co-founder and co-leader. They..." Regulus shuddered, eyes falling shut for a moment, Evan frowned, were things so much worse still than Adrienna had hinted at? "They did terrible things, Evan, things that just don't have a way back from anymore. I tried to stop them but... they burned Lucius alive from the inside out in front of dozens of witnesses."

"Bloody hell," Evan breathed out and dragged a hand down his face, as much as he had despised the snotty better-than-you attitude that Lucius Malfoy had paraded around, even he hadn't deserved to die like that.

"Merlin," Regulus shook himself free of those memories and settled a hand up on Evan's shoulder, "I can't put it into words how happy it makes me to see you standing here."

"Likewise," Evan smiled at him, "and Reg, I would have come back sooner. It's just... when Adrienna found me for the first time, and told me about you still being alive... I wanted to drop everything and go home. I didn't want you to grieve when there was no need to, but Adrienna told me about how you were turning your life around, taking things into your hands for your own happiness. I couldn't risk destroying that." Regulus squeezed his shoulder.

"You wouldn't have destroyed anything," he said with full conviction but Evan knew that Regulus' life might have gone different if he had still been around to hide behind. Regulus had needed to grow up and he had done such an amazing job at it.

"Look at you now," he began in response, "you have a family, a home that finally looks like a home. You're a teacher. And Adrienna tells me you made with up your brother, with Andromeda and Narcissa."

"All of that could have happened with my best friend being here as well," Regulus insisted and for a moment Evan could spot the pain that hole was still causing and he was going to make sure to knit it back together as well as he could. He couldn't bring fifteen years back but he could do his best now. "My best friend who would have raised an amazing girl," Regulus added as well and he looked proud, Evan smiled in a sign of thanks. All he knew about the little girl he had to leave behind were things Adrienna was gushing about, it would feel good to hear about her from someone else as well.

Adrienna hadn't told him how Regulus and Marculus had found out, just that they had figured it out long before Evan's father had confirmed it for them.

"How is she? Adrienna said she is living here for the summer?" It was wild to think that he could have come here and instead of Jack it might have been Sarena who had opened the door. He had so much to make up for with his daughter, so much to explain and so much to apologize for.

"Your father is helping Marc's father get the Ministry sorted out. And he wants her safe and away from Silas' wife while he is gone so much," Regulus explained and Evan's heart swelled in gratitude for his father for making this decision. "She is a great girl, Evan, got a quick mind, her heart is in the right place and a talent for magic that is right on par with yours. When she was up on that dueling platform, it might as well have been you. She's got the right friends, too, three girls, one from each other house. Call themselves Black's Fancy Four." Regulus got a little red around the ears while saying it but Evan could see how proud he also was.

"Playing favourites, I see."

"They're great girls, Evan. Sarena, Julienna," Evan winced when Regulus listed down the names, Adrienna's oldest, Benjy's daughter, his daughter's best friend and girlfriend, fate was cruel, "Teresa Fawley and Samentha Macmilian. Come, let's sit down, I want to hear your story." Evan stopped Regulus when he wanted to turn into the living room, too, one could hear Jack chattering up a storm while Adrienna gave soft laughs.

"You could call Marc, then I wouldn't have to tell it twice. Did Marc solve..."

"We did it together, it's destroyed now." Regulus explained and Evan breathed out heavily, one problem less. "Your letters never got send, Evan." Regulus brought the worry marks right back though. "We didn't know about them until Stevan stumbled upon them in the attic and Silvan took them into his possession."

"Silas must have found them before my father could have," Evan growled out and curled his free hand into a fist, his brother had destroyed so many of his plans back in the day.

"Oh, your father, Evan," Regulus remembered just then with a gasp and his eyes turned wistful, "you have to tell Silvan. Since he read that letter, since Sarena knows the truth, he is a changed man. He has so many regrets about you, so many things he wants to apologize for and he thinks he never will be able to."

"One thing after the other," Evan decided because he couldn't take on too much at once, he had spent so many years alone and secluded from people and suddenly he would only in a bit of time find himself in one room with almost his entire old clique. He couldn't add his father into the picture just now.

"Kreacher?" Regulus turned to his little loyal friend who looked up at him, "Can you tell Marc to come as soon as possible?"

"Of course, Master Regulus," Kreacher assured them and then popped away, Regulus smiled up at Evan and then pulled him into the living room where Jack immediately drew their attention by wanting to show them what he had done for his Mama.

Evan couldn't wait to meet the woman who had conquered his best friend's heart.

\--

Marc appeared not ten minutes later, sporting a high collar that still couldn't hide the hickey on his neck. Adrienna had told Evan that Marc had found a girl but it still surprised him, but he also hadn't been around Marc for more than fifteen years. The boy who had turned his back on him on that first day of Sixth Year was no longer the man standing before him now.

"If you were busy with Emmeline, I would have let that excuse count," Regulus jumped for the hickey like a shark with blood, the big grin on his face telling Evan that this might not have been the first occasion where Marc had turned up with signs of his new relationship status.

"Oh frick off, Reg," Marc growled at him and smiled down at Jack who had come over to hug his leg. "What's the emergency then, I'll have you know I'm in the middle of rearranging my garden." Good to know that though he had grown up so much, some things just never changed, Evan thought to himself in the split short moment it took Regulus to make a decision on how to approach the news.

In his then chosen response Regulus didn't choose words but simply pointed over to where Evan was sitting on the side, just out of Marc's line of sight. Marc followed the gesture with his head and eyes and then froze for a good two minutes before he pressed both hands over little Jack's ears and spent a few precious seconds cussing up a storm. "Are we assuming no one died," were the first words without a dirty one attached to him.

"I think Reg and I remain an exception," Evan offered up, eyes briefly following how Jack danced back to his Papa and crawled up on Regulus' leg before he looked back up to Marc's dumbstruck face. Regulus and Adrienna remained quiet, gave them this second.

"Holy," Marc began but then swallowed it quickly down again, one hand coming up to be pressed against his chest, another familiar thing about him, "Evan!"

"It's been a long time, Marc," Evan greeted him and it was true, out of a circle of five he had been the only one who hadn't had a single run in with Marc after graduation. He hadn't seen Marc since long before a war had torn even the remaining four apart.

"It's been too freaking long," Marc hit right back at him, and he should have gotten the letter sooner, he should have gotten that letter in '81, he should have needed to know that he none of them had ever blamed him for his decisions so much sooner.

"Jack," Regulus intervened when it looked like Marc had a lot to say that he had to bite back in the presence of an adorable little toddler. "Can you go and fetch Papa the picture from Mama's mirror?"

"From the zoo?" Jack wanted to know and his eyes were pools of innocence, this was a kid who grew up in happiness and safety without being coddled, this kid was free of pressure, free of expectations.

"Yes, that one," Regulus agreed and swung his son down onto the floor where Jack took a running start and just so managed to not hit the cabinet on his way out. Regulus twitched but didn't fuss after him, instead he turned slightly disapproving eyes in Marc's direction. "Now you can _cuss_ him out."

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" It exploded out of Marc not a breath later, Evan leaned back, he knew he had this coming. "For thirteen years no less! Do you have any idea how I felt when I read your letter? How much fucking guilt there was because I could have helped you if you had only asked! Both of you!" He rounded on Regulus as well and Evan sensed there was some issue there that Marc and Regulus hadn't worked out yet. "Bloody both of you. Were you truly so co-dependent on each other that you both had to fake your deaths?" Evan and Regulus exchanged a look and just that quickly it was like no time had passed at all and they were still boys in Hogwarts and Marc was going on a tangent again because he felt left out simply for the reason that Regulus and Evan could share whole conversations without saying a word and Adrienna and Barty had long long since given up in getting involved there.

"Don't you give me that crap again," Regulus argued back and crossed his arms over his chest. "We had this conversation over ten years ago," he insisted but Marc looked very much like he would love a repeat of it right now.

"How are you so calm?" Marc demanded and though Regulus shrugged, Evan knew that he wasn't calm in the slightest, he could see it all over him, and wasn't that a feeling he could tear up over. So long, so many years, and Regulus' little tells were still so easy to be caught by him, Marc was just too riled up to certainly do the same.

"I had my freakout fifteen minutes ago," Regulus also explained and Evan grinned when Marc looked over to him, still fuming in his shock.

"And in his defense, he held a wand to my throat. If at all, _you're_ too calm," Evan also made his point and Marc glared at him, not hostile, just annoyed, Adrienna rolled her eyes over their behavior so hard she might as well have given herself a headache. Regulus laughed, and the fistbump that followed between them had their smiles turn a little soft.

"Holy hell." Marc sighed and then finally sunk down onto the couch next to Adrienna. "How long have you been back? Not even half an hour? And the two," he pointed between Evan and Regulus, "of you are already this thick again." And then he smiled, finally losing the pissed off frown on his face. "Good to know that time can't even kill that. And now you better start talking," he directed at Evan who sighed and went into it.

He talked about how he had come to realize that leaving was the only option, that there just wasn't anything strong enough anymore holding him back to keep fighting. Regulus had looked away from him at that point and Evan knew that maybe they hadn't lost their dynamic but there was a lot between them they would need to talk about. Just the two of them.

He talked about running, about the paranoia that had only worsened when he couldn't find a place to settle for more than a few days. He talked about losing sleep because he was sure that people were hunting him, and he told them about his fears over not knowing which side it might be. He talked about finally being able to disappear and that over the years Adrienna was the only one ever able to find him again and again.

He talked about Russia and St.Petersburg, about trying and for the most part failing in making a new life for himself, about doing work that he wasn't too proud of but that got him by day after day.

He didn't hesitate about talking about missing his home, his family and his friends, about longing to see his daughter grow up but knowing that she had been safer with him out of the picture. He didn't tell them about the dozens of time he was close to just drop everything and return home after Adrienna had told him about Regulus' reappearance, that too was something that belonged between the two of them first.

When it was Regulus' turn to lay his story bare for him, Evan listened with a heart that was screaming because he had been so close and yet so far away. That beach, that very same beach he had sat on on his last night in Britain, that beach he had shunned until then after his best friend's death because he hadn't wanted the good memories while it was hurting so much. If only he had gone, if only he had made just one short visit to think of times lost now, only to realize nothing was lost at all.

Regulus left out most about what happened in the cave but Evan hoped it was just something he wanted to talk about in private as well. He didn't want to be protected from the words about how Regulus had nearly died, not after it had been his job for so long to protect him.

There was so much still they would have to talk about, so many years to catch up on but when the clock struck noon and Regulus' eyes flickered over to the entrance corridor, it was Marc who brought them back on track.

"Are any of you even aware of what position this puts me in now? I'm the Minister's son and if he's not dead then Evan is still very much wanted for Fenwick's murder." Marc laid it bare for them and Evan briefly closed his eyes before he glanced over to Adrienna, just because she had in parts forgiven him didn't mean that society in general had. "What are you gonna do when Tonks shows up? Or your brother?" Marc turned to Regulus who grimaced, Evan had a feeling that Sirius might not react as violently as they were expecting. "Reg, you have auror friends now. You're a member of the freaking Order!"

Evan's eyebrows shot up and Regulus laughed when he looked over and saw his face. "The Order of the Phoenix?" Evan wanted to know in a tone he wasn't sure how to call, incredulity was surely among the emotions portrayed there.

"Times changed. We're all in it," Regulus confirmed for him and Evan looked into the round of his friends with blinking eyes. "But don't get me wrong, I still consider most of them reckless lunatics."

"Holy shit."

"Holy shit indeed," Marc grumbled out, "what are we going to do if Sirius shows up? Remus can be talked to but Sirius is gonna hex first, ask questions rather never." Evan wondered if less than one year had been enough for Sirius to become the protective brother Regulus had needed from him when he had been a child.

"Sirius also knows what it means to be condemned and too harshly judged for having done something he hadn't," Regulus reminded them and he sat up straighter when a car stopped outside the house. Evan remembered that he had said something about his girlfriend coming home within the hour earlier.

"Did you or did you not kill Fenwick?" Marc asked it flat out without any judgement in his voice but Evan knew he had made mistakes and he was not going to run from them anymore.

"It was a duel," he got out first though anyway, "a duel that **I** didn't start." Sometimes in his nightmares he could still see Fenwick come storming at him as if it was yesterday, accusations flying. "We were both angry, we both stepped over a line you shouldn't step over. He died at the consequence of a curse I sent for him. But blowing him to smitherons? Defiling his corpse? That wasn't me, that were Silas and Dominic, Marc."

"Can you prove that?"

"Go into my head and you can see it. I won't stop you," Evan told Marc but glanced over to Regulus who held his eyes until it was Evan who broke eye contact. They both knew, they both had acted on it in the past, sometimes it was easier to see something than talk about it.

"Can you two stop fighting?" Adrienna demanded with a huff, slamming an arm across Marc's chest when he wanted to protest, prompting him to double over to catch his breath again. "We all made mistakes. And we all paid for them. If the Law Enforcement Department knows what's good for them then they're gonna see Evan's thirteen years in exile as enough punishment. We need him. Thomas and Stevan need to be stopped."

And then Regulus shot to his feet when a key could be heard opening the front door, only a moment later there were quick little feet bounding down the staircase and a loud call of "Mama" rang out even before Regulus had left the living room. A blond woman stopped right in view of the door to lean down and catch her approaching son, swinging him up in her arms even though her eyes looked a little tired.

Evan drank it in with a smile how Regulus joined them, how he subtly slipped an arm under the one the woman was using to hold little Jack on her hip, how he used his free hand to push a strand of hair out of her face before leaning in for a quick kiss. This was Olivia. This was the woman who had captured his best friend's heart. This was Regulus' little family, not the one ancestry tried to force on him but the one his heart had wanted.

He averted his eyes when Regulus leaned in to whisper something to Olivia, he spent his time studying the pictures displayed all over the living room. Pictures showing a happy family. Pictures showing the friends Regulus had made now. There was one that showed him with two young girls, and with the looks of them Evan deduced that it had to be Adrienna's daughters.

"Evan," Regulus called for his attention when he stepped back into the room, Olivia at his side, Jack bouncing over to Adrienna and Marc. Evan got to his feet. "I'd like you to meet Liv." She looked slightly overwhelmed but still happily stretched out a hand for him to shake.

"It's a surprise to meet you, Evan, but certainly a good one," Liv offered up and Regulus looked at her as if she had personally painted the stars onto the nightsky for him, like she was the sun he was rotating around. "Reggie told me so much about you."

"It's an honor to meet you, too. Adrienna told me a little about you," Evan said and carefully shook Liv's hand for a moment, glancing over to Regulus whose bright red ears were telling what his averted eyes didn't want to. They sat down again and it was then that Jack apparently remembered he had been send to fetch something, he skipped over to his parents and showed the picture he was holding in one small hand to Regulus.

"Give it to Papa's friend, Jackie," Regulus instructed him and Jack came over, there was no fear in him, no hesitation about approaching this stranger in his home. But why should he? This boy had grown up safe and happy, no one had taught him to hate certain people, no one had taught him he was better than others or that some people were worth less because of how they had been born. All this boy saw was a man his father had welcomed into his home with a hug, who only minutes later had been laughing with him.

Jack stopped in front of him and held out the picture, it was moving, clearly a magical one. Evan took it and turned it around so he could see easier, and one first look was already enough to steal the breath from his lungs. Two girls were swinging a laughing Jack between them, a giraffe was watching them with its head and neck bend over the fence of its enclosure. Both girls were in summer dresses, and judging by Jack looking very much like he did right there in front of Evan now, it couldn't have been that long ago. Toddlers changed so much still.

As much as Jack's shining happiness was heart-warming in the picture, it wasn't what caught Evan's eye, nor was it what prompted him to press a hand over his mouth. Julienna Greengrass because it couldn't be anyone else, not with this girl looking so much like Adrienna and Fenwick, was smiling, fond, in love, watching her friend laughing while looking down at the little boy they were playing this game with.

Julienna's friend.

Evan's daughter.

That bright silver-blond Rosier hair. Their pale skin. Sparkling green eyes. That lean skinny built. There just seemingly seemed to be nothing of her mother in her. He couldn't believe that he had been part of creating such a beautiful girl.

A hand on his shoulder made him aware of Regulus having come over as well and he slowly looked up at him. "I know you spent thirteen years of her life being far away, she grew into a teenager without you but Evan, I promise you, in fact I swear to you that the second she hears about you being alive, she'll want nothing more than to get to know you."

"She knows the truth?" Evan choked past the lump in his throat, heart pounding heavily, Regulus nodded, squeezing his shoulder stronger.

"Silvan explained before Stevan could use it to hurt her even more. And Evan, every time I find something now in her that reminds me of you, she looks so happy."

\--

Regulus was stuck in some kind of daydream and it was one that just wouldn't stop getting better and better. He sat on the couch with his arm around Liv's shoulders and try as he might he couldn't take his eyes off of Evan for long, afraid that it was only some blip of his imagination and not confirming it again and again would cause Evan's image to disappear. But every time he looked Evan remained sitting right there in that armchair, laughing and talking with Liv, Adrienna and a still slightly grumpy Marc, smiling when Jack was showing him something because a new person meant showing off so many of his things again.

He knew that this moment wouldn't last forever, there was a war outside the safe walls of Grimmaudplace, they were all acting on borrowed time. Already the tension in the air was thick enough to bring the old paranoia and the old fears back alive in the people who had been old enough to feel it the first time around. And he didn't mean those who had been around for Voldemort's tyranny, his game had quickly been obvious, terror had been the predominant emotion outside his own circles but as sad as it sounded the fighting had at least been something actually happening.

The Death Eaters had been monsters to be afraid of, there had been a target.

The Dark Circle acted like smoke monsters, aside from Thomas, Stevan and maybe a handful of other boys their age, no one actually knew who was operating among their ranks. They didn't hide away, there weren't Death Eater marks or long hoods but they never seemed to step out with the same group. They were quick, they were smart and they never unleashed their violence on those the media had proclaimed their targets.

People were confused.

Which was mostly to blame on the press still comparing the Dark Circle to the Death Eaters, creating an image of Voldemort's legacy, when in truth it couldn't have been further from the truth. Thomas Fawley was shaping himself up to be the next Grindewald, and at his side the ever loyal Stevan Rosier who was stepping into the footsteps of a great-uncle who had once played right hand man to Grindewald. And to Regulus' absolute horror, their charisma was working.

And not just on purebloods.

Even half-bloods and once pureblood families who hadn't cared about keeping their line pure were suddenly speaking about how difficult times were and how desperately they needed things to be better.

The Ministry couldn't get back in order fast enough, Silvan and Marc's father needed to act fast now before more people put the integrity and believability of the ministry into question. The people were afraid because they didn't know what to be afraid of and why, it was wearing everyone down. And as much as he hated it, Regulus knew that he had a target on his back from more than the Dark Circle and he also knew that though Thomas and Stevan might, other people wouldn't hesitate to attack his family.

Without any real posed threat yet, the officials means were not an option but thankfully enough the Order had found together quicker again than the Ministry could sort itself out and Regulus was relieved in knowing that Liv going to and from work or out on errands didn't happen without watchful eyes on her. And the same went double for the girls.

There was also enough still to consider concerning Evan's return and how difficult it would be to achieve for him what Regulus had been offered. Evan had joined under the same circumstances Regulus had but contrary to him Evan had killed, once, but still, he had fought a duel that had claimed a life and there would be a punishment for it. But they needed him against Thomas and Stevan, if there was anyone still able to break through to at least Stevan than it was him.

"Where's your head at?" Evan's voice ripped him from his thoughts like an anchor and Regulus looked over to him, Liv and Adrienna were worked up on something that had happened in some gossip circle or other and were talking animated and loud enough that one could hide a conversation beneath it. Marc was taken into possession by Jack, the day they had come back from their last outing at the zoo, Julienna and Sarena had made him a flower crown and Jack knew that Marc could tell him everything about the magically preserved flowers.

"Our situation," Regulus began quietly, "you can't imagine how happy I am to have you back, I couldn't be able to put it into words even if I tried but... man, Adri picked one hell of a time to return you to us. It's a mess, Evan. They got their hands everywhere."

"You need to tell me how it came this far, if you know. Adrienna couldn't tell me anything more than some superficial details, I'm not sure if she knows more and just didn't want to tell me or if she is as clueless as she pretends to be." Evan told him with his voice just as lowered and Regulus glanced over to Marc watching them with one eye while Jack looked at flower petals. "I don't want to jump into this blind, Reg."

"We need to think about what to do with you first," Regulus decided and fingered the wand in his sleeve, "I know Sirius and you met after I 'died', but Marc has a point he's not gonna take it as easily to see you back now. I can reason with Remus, he can look past foregone mistakes and decisions to accept that you're an asset now but my brother and Fenwick were friends. He's not gonna listen that easily." Regulus pointed out a little regretfully, he had come a long way with Sirius and that long talk on the beach had helped a great deal in them understanding each other's issues better.

But he wasn't sure if the confessions he had made and the longing he had admitted were strong enough to rule over the need for justice in his brother's heart. There was one thing though, Regulus would not risk losing Evan again, he would not risk losing this miracle of getting another best friend back, not in these dark times where he needed everyone at his side whom he could trust.

"Like I said I'm ready to accept punishment when it is dealt out with justice." Evan reminded him and leaned forward so he wouldn't have to whisper so much to not be overheard by the others. "Reg, how bad is it? I can see something in your eyes that is frighteningly familiar."

"It's bad, it's worse than it was for us back then. No one knew Voldemort as a person, no one knew who Tom Riddle was either, they didn't know he was a half blood with a muggle father who boasted himself on cleansing our world of sin." Regulus recalled it with a shudder, "but Thomas and Stevan carry names that hold something in our society. They don't need terror, tyranny and masks, if they open their mouths, people listen. Stevan is too much like your brother, and you know how manipulative Silas could be." Evan nodded, face clouding over with a heavy frown. "And Thomas has real charisma, he can read people so easily but something got kicked loose in him, he has become unhinged. What he did to Lucius... I don't know many people who would have crossed that line as unflinching as he did."

Evan grimaced and leaned back in his chair again, he didn't even get to fully relax though because in the next blink of an eye already he froze and looked over Regulus' shoulder at the doorway with wide eyes. Regulus spun around, conversations died away immediately, and for a short moment he feared to see Sirius in the doorway, wand already drawn.

But it wasn't Sirius.

It was a wide eyed teenage girl framed by Adrienna's equally speechless daughters who had returned from their sleepover at the Fawleys.

"The portkey brought us to the backyard," Julienna stuttered out as she forced her eyes away from Evan, gave a brief glance over Sarena's completely stone still face and then focused on her mother. "Hi, Mum." Adrienna smiled and waved her girls over, Laureen went happily enough, Adrienna had been gone again for a couple of days after all. Julienna hesitated for a moment still, visibly torn between wanting comfort herself after such a surprise and wanting to remain at Sarena's side but the first won out after a moment.

Regulus let go of Liv and slowly went to his feet and then over to Sarena, when he crossed into her line of sight and cut it off from Evan, her wide green eyes – _Evan's_ wide green eyes, never had it been as obvious as now with the direct comparison – switched to look up at him.

"Is it..."

"Yeah, it's really him," he told her softly, smiling at the spark of hope that flared up in her eyes, "seems like I wasn't the only one with some tricks up their sleeves." With one hand he reached up to wipe the first tear off of Sarena's cheek, the other went behind his back to make a gesture at Evan. He heard the springs in the armchair as Evan got up and then the shuffling of shoes over carpet as he came closer. "It's up to you what happens now, Sarena. No one could have forseen this. I know this is a lot to take in, believe me, I do understand but..."

She didn't even let him finish.

Just suddenly beelined around him and threw herself at Evan two steps behind him, wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his chest. Evan was frozen for only a short moment, then he wrapped his arms around his daughter, leaned his chin on top of her head and closed his eyes.


	3. Pre-Act - Part I

**Summer of 1984 to Summer of 1991 – A Life in Hiding  
**

Three years after he had left Great Britain in a night full of grief and pain for a life he hadn't been enjoying for two years already, Evan found himself walking down the rather busy magical alley of St.Petersburg. Skryt Alley was filled to the brink with witches and wizards on last minute errands after their jobs had left off for the day. It wasn't really the time he preferred to go out but he had been late two days on his latest delivery.

He pulled his cloak tighter around himself and made sure the hood was still pulled tight into his face, he wasn't going to risk anything. He had run too long and too far to lose his freedom now, he had made sure that no one knew anymore who he was, a stranger among strangers. Russia was perfect for his needs now, the people were excessively private and respected the privacy of others, no one was bothered by who their neighbours were.

No one looked at him.

No one noticed him.

He could easily make his way through the crowds until he reached the black fronted old three story house. No matter how calm and peaceful the world around him was, it sure didn't resemble his inner mood. Evan had been paranoid since basically the moment he had been born, or at least his father had always said that, always vigilant, always very sensitive to noises, always suspicious. It was ingrained into his blood, the Rosiers had always been a paranoid bunch.

Evan's subconscious had only dialed it up so much more when he had gone on the run, months of feeling hunted and chased by ghosts and shadows had left their marks. Months of losing sleep and never being able to truly settle for longer than a few days for nearly three years had made their marks on his mind and soul. Evan was no longer the person he had once been, the boy who had had friends and a family, who had loved and cared, that boy had died the moment he had first set a foot on French soil.

The portkey had carried him away from a life where he had lost his friends in many different ways, but all of them for good, and into a life where he had no one but himself and even that person he didn't remember anymore. The dreams he might have once had for a future had long since gotten buried under mistakes and marks and a dead best friend. Sometimes when he sat up in his bed at night, his head too loud to settle in for sleep, Evan could still remember how he had been a young boy, how he had sat in front of his father's desk and told him that one day he wanted to make a difference, too.

A difference that made people's lives just a little better.

And it wouldn't have been the first time that he wondered when he had gotten so desillusioned. When had his path stopped following his father's and instead swept into being just another line on the spiral downwards that his brothers had long since taken? When had the boy who had never let anyone tell him what he should do fallen for his brothers' manipulations?

Evan had regrets, a great many, regrets that filled his very blood with guilt until it wasn't running red anymore but black.

It had taken Regulus' death until his eyes had finally been opened to the truth and then it had still taken so much time and another man's death until Evan had found the courage to do what needed to be done.

Dragging himself out of his head and thoughts, Evan pushed open the door in front of him and right away caught the eyes of the man standing behind the counter who nodded to the backroom after a brief incline of the head in a greeting. The Russians didn't waste their time on pleasantries like the Brits did, straight to business it was with them, and Evan appreciated it. No small-talk meant that no one ever got interested in his past. Or interested in him period.

He slipped around another customer checking over the shelves and then into the small backroom, he didn't sit down, knew from experience by now that it wasn't worth it, he would be out of here within minutes again anyway. Gorgi followed him after another brief moment and softly closed the door, he was a robust man, smaller than Evan by far but rounder by even more.

"Sergeij was impressed," Gorgi started in his heavily accented English, Evan was learning Russian fast but he still needed some time to really talk with the natives. "He said that you worked even faster this time."

"I got lucky," Evan evaded the truth a little, his last job had been done quicker than estimated because his target had been dumb as hay but he couldn't tell that to Gorgi and least of all to Sergeij.

"Whatever it was, Sergeij has two more jobs for you if you are willing. For a good price of course," Gorgi ended as if he was still believing that he needed to drop the gold to get Evan to agree.

Evan just wanted to be kept busy.

He didn't want time to think.

He didn't want time to feel the pain or the guilt.

"Artifact or human," was his only question and Gorgi smiled, content as always that they were on the same line. He swept himself into the job description and Evan listened only with one ear, by now he had the rundown of how he was attacking every situation. Emotions couldn't get in the way, not when there were none to begin with.

\--

When he left Gorgi's place a few minutes later, left pocket holding a letter with the instructions and information he needed to jump into the next mission, Evan let himself get lose into the anonimity of crowds again.

He never walked among the hidden alleys of the magical hub of St.Petersburg without wearing a hood or transfiguring his appearance. Three years had passed now since he had fled Britain, since he had faked his death, soon it would be three years as well since the war had ended.

But that was about all he had gotten to know.

Voldemort dead because of the Potter's infant son, both parents dead.

Evan didn't know the fates of anyone else. He didn't know what had happened to his brothers, his father, his mother, his sister-in-law, his nephew. He didn't know about his daughter, how much she had grown, what she was capable of now, Sarena would be five this year. He didn't know what had happened to his friends or those who had once been his friends. Adrienna and her daughter, the child she had set into her husband's hands as his, the child who would never get a chance to get to know her real father. Barty, he had no idea how far he could have still fallen, how much more darkness there could have possibly been or if Evan's death might have just been the one thing he needed to drag himself out as well.

And Marc. Merlin, he hoped at least one of them had made it out somehow, had kept his hands clean and maybe, just maybe, Marc had been successful and they could assure that dead staid dead. But Evan wouldn't know it until the bad side of that chance would rear its terrible head again, even if he found a way to make contact with Marc who had visibly vanished from the side of the earth after graduation, there was no telling if Marc wouldn't hex him at first sight.

And Evan knew he wouldn't defend himself.

He deserved every curse Marc would want to fling at him.

Every one.

In the beginning months after his run, when the war had still being tearing Great Britain apart and kept the rest of magical Europe on their toes in fear it might yet still sweep over to them, Evan had been so alert and so afraid that he hadn't slept for three days straight. He was so close and still so far away, and he had needed to hide himself away and move around so much to not get detected that he had never been able to truly find out if the information he was getting was true or just rumor.

He hadn't known about Voldemort's supposed fall until shortly before christmas, back then he had reached Vienna after hiding out in muggle area for weeks to bring distance between himself and any possible trackers. In Vienna's magical districts, the people had still been celebrating and for one night he had let himself forget to be unnoticable as well. For just one night, more hadn't been possible, not until he had kept making his way east.

He had known right from the moment defection had crossed his mind for the first time that going east would be his only option, that taking as many confusing paths on the way there as possible would be the way to go about it. The further east you went from Britain, the lesser people shyed away from dark magic, in Asia they didn't even color it black and white, they only saw spells and curses and hexes in shades of grey, they divided magic in non-dangerous and dangerous.

Evan didn't want to dive back into dark magic, he had never wanted it, he had always been disgusted by what his brothers had been doing, what his uncle had fallen victim to among Grindewald's circles. But a country where they didn't hunt down wizards touched by dark magic was safe for people like him now, he could disappear there without fearing that one look at his arm would have him arrested in the next second.

Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, Croatia, Slovakia and then finally Russia in the spring of '84. His original idea had been to go further west after a short stay in St.Petersburg, he could hide among the Russians rather easily and away from the big cities he might just be able to completely disappear but a few days in Russia's most western city had taught him quickly enough that he was safer among crowds.

No matter if he liked it or not.

Evan had never been a social person, regardless of what his youth had looked like, just because Regulus had been entirely anti-social hadn't meant that Evan had been at home among the charity balls and get-togethers of their society back then. He had loved to be with his friends, and them alone, a book was preferred over everyone else. So becoming just one in a pile of many fit him rather well and once he found this new job the decision had been made anyway.

\--

Sergeij Rasmaniov was a collector of precious artifacts and also the Director of the Magical Office for Observation in the Law Enforcement Department, even the magical community got paranoid over its own people in Mother Russia. Evan didn't necessarily care for the morality of it, Sergeij knew who he was and had never said a word, and he kept Evan busy.

Hunting down artifacts that rumors had been heard about. Tracking down people who couldn't be hunted down by Sergeij's own men and women because of authorization issues. Evan was no killer and no executioner, never again, but still he was exceptionally good at finding people and artifacts and bringing them to the doorstep of Sergeij's mansion.

Some things were more trouble than they were worth but Evan was kept busy and hence kept from thinking of the past, kept from dissolving into the paranoia still wrecking his dreams. Nightmares of Fenwick coming for him again. Nightmares of seeing the life drain out of Fenwick's eyes, contrary to what everyone must have believed, what most of all Evan's own brothers had believed Evan had never killed until that moment. And it had hit him hard, to see that last moment in a person's life, it had destroyed something inside of him.

And he hadn't meant it, that came on top of it as well, no one would believe him of course, they had seen a Death Eater go up against an Order member. Even those who knew him, they had seen a jealous ex go up against the boy who had made eyes at the forbidden in school. No one knew the truth, not even Adrienna, and Evan would certainly still go into his grave wondering what she had been thinking. He hadn't wanted to kill Benjy Fenwick. He had been angry, he had been hurt, and so had he, they had fought when they shouldn't have, not with accusations so ripe between them.

But Evan had been angry and he had been scared.

He had hit back at a curse he shouldn't have deflected that hard, he had known better but he had been too blinded in that moment, he had made a grave mistake. And Fenwick had paid the price. All that happened after, the horrors that his brothers inflicted on a good man's corpse, Evan had been too shocked by his actions to stop them.

As he disapparated back to his little flat now, he wondered if there would come a time where he could move on, where the guilt wasn't choking him like a steadily more tightening noose.

\--

By the time 1986 came around and marked five years since his faked death, Evan had found his footing in St.Petersburg, had mastered the language and become more comfortable with his surroundings and the people. The paranoia would never leave him, it had been there long before it had been useful and it would stay long after he would ever need it again, too, but it didn't rule his days anymore.

Impressed by his skills and his attitude to the given missions, Sergeij had not only given him a whole new identity to crawl into but also a steady position at his sub-department. Evan worked full time now as a spy and people chaser, some kind of darker version of a British hitwizard and that irony didn't pass him by, had given him a few laughs over the months. Whenever the occassion arose, Sergeij's expensive tastes let him turn into a treasure hunter as well.

"Aleksi!"

Evan stopped upon hearing his fake name being called out by one of his colleagues, Daniil Petrovksi jogged up to him from the entrance of the Ministry building in Moscow, a rather dull looking building in spitting distance of the Kreml. Daniil was a couple of years older than Evan but still among the younger faces in the department, Sergeij was fussy with whom he was accepting. He wanted skills, not names, was willing to overlook a rocky past if he got loyalty and dedication to the job.

He gave second chances but only ever once, Evan had no desire to disappoint him.

"Glad I caught you still," Daniil grinned when he came to a stop next to Evan, black hair and captivating blue eyes, it was hard sometimes to look at him for longer. "Serge wants two men on the Rasisnski case and I thought I'd ask you. The leads we got go straight for Samara and I know you're headed there soon for the French ambassador's dinner anyway." Evan was the only one in the department who spoke fluent French and hence had been designated by Sergeij to spy on the French ambassador's wife who was a witch with a history that could become troublesome for the Russian magical community.

Unless appropriate measures were taken.

"You wanna double up?" Evan proposed in a question, he got along well enough with Daniil to not let it become a tiresome effort, even though he preferred to work alone. He wasn't into making friends again, he still mourned the ones he had lost too much, he still hadn't figured out who he was now, he couldn't unload his troubles on someone else. "Good with me," he continued after Daniil had nodded, "when are you leaving?"

"Portkey is set for in three days. I'll sent you the time and place when I get them tomorrow?" Daniil offered and Evan inclined with a smile before they gave a brief goodbye and both headed home for the evening.

Though when Evan turned back to walking towards the dark side alley where he could easily vanish from outside the magical barrier surrounding the Ministry and the Kreml area, he froze in the middle of the Red Square.

Wide eyes staring straight into Adrienna Greengrass' smiling face.

\--

_"You shouldn't seek what you can't have."_

_The boy with the red tie stopped in the middle of the corridor and then slowly turned around to look over to where Evan had been leaning against a wall, patiently waiting for the other to leave the library. Golden brown eyes locked with his as the two years older Gryffindor eyed him with thinly veiled disinterest, eying the green on his tie and cloak like someone did an annoying insect._

_"Rosier, wasn't it?" Benjy Fenwick asked as if he didn't know very well whom he was facing now, as if he didn't know about their group through a very good source. Namely the only girl in their ranks. "You think you have a right to tell me what I can do with my life?"_

_"I can and I will if it threatens the safety of my friends," Evan argued right back at him, Fenwick might be a Sixth Year but that didn't mean Evan had to be afraid of him._

_"I believe Adrienna is still very much capable of making her own decisions where it concerns the people she wants to be around," Fenwick pointed out, it was difficult to get him out of his calm state, Evan had already realized that. Fenwick wasn't a hothead, not like Potter and his lackies who only ever stormed into situations wand first, head left behind. Fenwick thought first and then acted on it, it took effort to rile him up, not that Evan wanted that, he only wanted to get his point across._

_"You're right, Adrienna makes her own decisions but sometimes those decisions aren't what is best for her." Evan explained it slowly and quietly, only ten steps behind them, even visible through the half open library doors, Regulus was sitting and watching them, waiting no doubt for something to do wrong. Barty, Marc and Adrienna were on the grounds, waiting for them to finish up here. "You aren't what is best for her."_

_"Now, listen here, Rosier..."_

_"No, you listen," Evan interrupted the interruptor, not letting himself be deviated from the speech he wanted to give, he had come with one purpose and one purpose alone. Protect a friend. And it had nothing to do with any jealousy, Regulus, thank you very much. "You may think this is some little harmless flirt or even that sweet little relationship that teenagers have in school. And you are very much entitled to enjoy your trysts, play around a little and then one day find someone or not. That is not the way Adrienna's future is gonna look like, and being charmed by people who will not have a place in her future is only gonna hurt her."_

_"You're telling me to back off?" Fenwick's eyes flashed now and Evan guessed that he might have hit a nerve after all but the Gryffindor also still kept to his spot, his hands were still empty, the wand remained at his hip._

_"I'm telling you that if you truly care even a little bit about Adrienna, then you will leave her be before she gets inevitably hurt by this relationship." Evan told this boy who might have been decent if his tie had only been blue and not red. Mister Burke wasn't disapproving of Marc being around his daughter or Barty being her closest friend by now, he might have just been accepting a half blood Ravenclaw as his daughter's future husband._

_But never a Gryffindor._

_He left Fenwick at that point, knew that stunned eyes were following him as Evan walked back into the library where Regulus pretended that scene hadn't just happened._

\--

"How did you find me?"

There was no question more important to ask in that moment.

Nothing more important than getting an answer to that question.

"Wow," Adrienna deadpanned and flawlessly walked a few feet closer, Evan fought against the urge to back away from her. Five years hadn't changed a lot in Adrienna, even though she had had a child already, Julienna would soon turn seven already, born right on the day of Regulus' death, fate had been cruel to that poor child. And who knew anyway, he certainly couldn't, Adrienna might have just popped out a couple more in the meantime.

She was still thin as a stick though, and small as ever, delicate in frame maybe but for sure nowhere else, her spine had always been made from the hardest of steel. She had always been made to still stand straight when life had already buckled those around her to the floor. Proven in the way she stood in front of him now, unafraid, head held high, dressed up in elegance and sharpness, a challenge in brown eyes and not an ounce of surprise. "Your manners really took a nosedive, didn't they? Must be a consequence of dying, seen that before." The last part was muttered under her breath and Evan just so caught it. "But would you look at that, don't look so dead to me after all. You wanna tell me how that came to be?"

He wasn't in the mood to answer any of her questions until he had an answer of his own. He had worked so hard to become untracable, to vanish, he had risked so much, too much, in order to lose the little life he had built up for himself now.

"I think we can both safely agree that this isn't a coincidence," Evan completely ignored Adrienna's question and saw how it pissed her off. "St.Petersburg is hardly your usual summer vacation destination. So again, I ask you, how did you find me, Adrienna?"

"I believe the more important quetion you should be wondering about right now," she still knew perfectly how to get under his skin and Evan gritted his teeth to not grab her arms and start shaking her, "is why haven't I alerted anyone yet."

Frankly, that was the least of Evan's concerns right now because the authorities closest to them would only be stopped by Sergeij anyway. Evan had nothing to worry about with the Russians.

"What do you want?"

"Ah, unfortunately wrong," Adrienna chirped and people were still starring at them and this very much too public argument for Merlin's sake. "Is it so hard to believe an old friend might want to catch up after finding out her friend isn't so dead after all?" An old friend might, not her though. Not with him.

"Who else knows?" Evan fired up right behind it because if she had told even one wrong soul he was going to have to get back on the run right about this second. He was not going to lose his life now after he had just found a way to do some good after all the evil he was dragging behind himself still.

"No one, relax," Adrienna huffed and rolled her eyes, they had always worked on the extremes of friendship, either being in complete sync or in total disagreement. "I can keep a secret rather well, as you bloody well might still remember."

"Adrienna," Evan started in a controlled tone that didn't resemble the chaos and panic inside his mind at all, he was forcing himself to keep it together. "I don't know what you want but I cannot believe it will hold interest to me. I had my reasons to leave, to disappear, to die. And I'd be surprised anyway if you of all people couldn't rest because of grief after my death was announced."

"What? Because of Benjy?" Adrienna wanted to know and made a face, for a moment then looking more like seventeen than mid-twenties. "How one dimensional do you think my emotions are?" She sounded so offended that he nearly would have smiled at it, almost.

"I think that though five years might have passed and dulled your anger and grief over the fact that I killed your lover, it certainly wouldn't have lessened the grudge within you over it at all," Evan summarized what he knew to be the truth.

Adrienna's nose twitched and he had his answer.

"Go home, Adrienna. Live your life and I'll live mine. There is nothing you could say that could pull me back." The punch to the face hit him so unexpectantly that Evan nearly went to his knees under it, right there in the middle of the Red Square, in more or less spitting distance to his workplace. If any of his colleagues had just seen that, he was going to be milked about it for months. And the next blow followed just as he had straightened up again and was staring out of unbelieving eyes at Adrienna who was shaking out her hand.

Three words that changed his life all over again.

"Regulus is alive, you dumbass!"

\--

Adrienna stumbled back against the wall after the unexpected pull of the apparation as he had forced her right along, get away from Moscow, get away from public eyes so he could explode in the privacy of his new home.

"You better have a damn good reason to tell such lies!" He roared at her and made two looming steps towards her that pinned her against the wall for good, eyes going round now. Spine out of steel didn't mean that she couldn't be scared. "I know you hate me but this is a low blow that I hadn't believed you capable off!" He snarled and stopped just a step away from her, prompting Adrienna to crane her neck back to keep eye contact. Evan hoped he looked as furious and hurt as he felt, of all the wounds to dig into, of all the pain that never got dimmed to flare right up again, he couldn't believe she had thought to hurt him like this. "Seems like you've picked up more of your husband's cruelty than I imagined. Or was Benjy's sharp tongue contagious after all these years?"

"Evan," Adrienna's suddenly so quiet and soft voice threw his whole anger against a wall, he wanted to rage, he wanted an opponent to spit fire at. All he got was a gentle hand coming up to frame his face on one side. "Evan, it's the truth. Regulus is alive. He faked everything, he won't tell me why but he came back. The summer after the war had ended, got pardoned and everything." He crashed away from her and her touch and her words as if he had been stung or bitten, colliding with the couch at his back and almost going over it.

"He hid himself for more than two years because whatever he had to do to disappear, it nearly diminished his magic into non-existence. He needed a lot of time to recover, not just body but also mind." Every single word of Adrienna's explanation hit Evan like a hammer blow. Regulus alive. Regulus not dead. Regulus not lost. The horcrux hadn't killed Regulus. Voldemort hadn't killed Regulus. Regulus was alive.

Everything Evan had been running from had been a lie.

"Come on, let's sit down." Adrienna was suddenly close again and taking his hand to lead him around the couch to sit down, Evan continued to stare into thin air, his mind a million miles away. Stuck on a graveyard where they had buried a lie. Stuck on a graveplate stating a lie. Stuck on a broken heart that had never needed to break. And as Adrienna then told him about the last five years of her life, four of which Regulus had been back in it, Evan hung onto every word like they were more important than the air he needed to breathe.

Regulus alive and well.

Regulus pardoned and free.

Regulus starting over.

Marc forgiving them and back in their lives.

Regulus creating a life for himself like he wanted it, no one forcing anything on him.

Little Julienna being friends with Evan's own daughter who had florished into a smart and beautiful little girl.

Adrienna had had another daughter.

Marc had kept being strong and never lost his stride, even in the darkest hours of the war, keeping his influence and his standing for remaining steadfast in his neutrality.

Evan's father had kept his head up as well, remained strong in the blows that his family had been dealt with.

Regulus had become a teacher and it was so perfect for him that it could have brought tears to Evan's eyes.

There were of course also the bad things – Sirius Black had snapped, betrayed the Potters to be killed, killed a friend and twelve innocent muggles and landed himself in Azkaban, none of that was making a lick of sense to Evan – Barty had lost every remaining bit of sanity, become Bellatrix' perfect little pet and helped torture the Longbottoms to lose their minds – Evan's own brothers were rotting away within Azkaban as well – but the good outweighed the bad a thousand times and he was so happy beneath all that stunned shock.

"But despite this new life and all the happiness that surrounds him now, there isn't a day where he doesn't grieve for you still." Adrienna accidentaly now stabbed right back into a scar of a wound, Evan flinched. "We don't talk about it a lot, but I know that Marc and him talked about you a lot still. Reg misses you, and when I found out that there might be a good chance that you faked everything as well, I needed to see how much truth it entailed." She took his hand, brought it into her lap, cupped by her smaller warmer hands. "He has built himself this good life, old friends and new friends, but he will always need his best friend, Evan. He'll always need his brother. And Marc and I could need you back as well. So, please. Please, Evan, come home."

"No." Evan answered her and it didn't take any hesitation or consideration at all, it was just that simple. Chapter closed. New book opened, the old one abandoned. "Going home is not an option for me. Not anymore. Go home, Adrienna, I'm going to keep you all safer and happier if I stay away."

\--

In the aftermath of Adrienna's visit, Evan found himself struggling harder than ever before with thoughts of returning back to Great Britain despite of what he had told her. Thoughts of returning back to a world where his best friend was still alive after all, where his best friend was granted a second chance at a life that was now truly his to command.

And that moment in his mind stopped him every single time his thoughts drifted back to Regulus and second chances and reunions. For the first time in his life Regulus now had the chance to form a life for himself entirely independent of the controlling hands his family always held over him, free of the protection that Evan still held over him long after he hadn't really needed it that much anymore.

And maybe it was better if Regulus made that step alone.

Evan would only stand in his way to redemption, Regulus deserved this second chance so much, a new life, a life full of possibilities and paths forming after Regulus's own wishes. A family of his own, kids, love. He deserved all of that so much, he didn't deserve to get a friend back who was broken and damaged beyond repair.

'There isn't a day where he doesn't grieve for you still.'

But even that would pass over time, Evan knew that the pain lessened, that it grew smaller and that maybe even if enough time had passed it wouldn't hurt anymore at all. They were still so young, Regulus still had his entire life before him, and none of it should be spend trying to fix Evan's.

So Evan threw himself back into work and waved off Daniil's concerns every single time his friend voiced them, he just needed to keep busy. Keep busy until he could sleep again. Keep busy until the nightmares disappeared again. Keep busy until the longing in his chest stopped trying to control him so much.

It didn't work.

More often than not he found himself reaching for a bag in his subconscious movements and his head planning out routes how to get back to London but he just couldn't. Too many people would be put in danger. If Evan Rosier wasn't a dead man, he was a wanted man, and only one of those protected his family and his friends. He couldn't go back, he had to let that life finally go, he had to let Regulus go.

And that hurt.

It hurt all over again.

"Alright, come on up."

And he could only numb the pain with alcohol.

"Okay, there we go," hands pulling him carefully up from where he had sprawled out on the kitchen floor after the last bottle had already felt so slippery in his hands. He swayed and his vision swum but strong hands kept him upright and on his feet, a shoulder got offered to lean against. "Let's get you into bed." Steps were hard and difficult and he was moving so fast.

The last thing he could remember was looking at that one picture he had let himself take along when he had run, the one he always kept in the inside pocket of his coat so he would never lose it. It was so old, so very old, they were so young in it still, neither of them knowing how fucking cruel the world was gonna turn out. So young and so happy and so blind and naive.

"We were all young and blind once, Aleksi," a voice at his side, calm and soothing, still moving him along, "we all mistakes and things we aren't proud of anymore. Doesn't mean you need to drink yourself into an early grave." He got stopped and carefully lowered down onto something soft and Evan's confused and wasted mind needed way too long to comprehend it was his bed.

"I already died once," he also found himself saying and didn't know why, the hands on his shoulders froze for a brief moment before they continued to push him down, "what's a second or third time. So many lies, all those lies and all that deception."

"Sleep, Aleksi."

On the next morning, Evan woke with a killing headache and no recollection of the last two days, and the only thing out of order in his flat were the picture on his nightstand that belonged in his coat and Daniil passed out on his couch. Trying to think hard to recollect didn't give him anything than just an even worse headache and when Daniil didn't act any different upon waking, Evan just made a checkmark behind this episode and promised himself to not let it get that bad again.

In order to achieve that he had to do something drastic.

He needed a change of air.

He was a mess, his head wasn't in the game, his head was stuck on reuniting with a friend he had thought lost forever, a friend whose death had sent him on a spirale out of control at which end had been sweet freedom. This news was spinning him out of control again but if he followed that path this time it wouldn't be freedom what followed, reuniting with Regulus wouldn't bring freedom and happiness, it would bring captivity for Evan and pain for both of them.

Evan couldn't let that happen, so he needed to actively work against the pull.

Instead of west, he would go east again.

Instead of going back he would just run harder once more.

Sergeij saw no issue in Evan asking to be relocated to Moscow for a while, instead of apparating back and forth between St.Petersburg and the capital on a daily basis. Daniil didn't question anything either, instead he let Evan crash on his couch until Evan had found a place of his own, St.Petersburg was missed but with Moscow being so different it was easier to breathe, easier to turn off his mind.

At least for a while.

Daniil and him worked well together, especially now where Evan didn't pop away for another city each afternoon, they could get to know each other better, or at least as much as Evan could let someone in... as much as Aleksi could let someone in. They partnered up when Sergeij proposed the idea and soon enough, within weeks of Evan's move really, they were the top team at the department, got the difficult jobs and missions to work, the difficult people to observe.

It were also Sergeij and Daniil who noticed though that though distance had helped, Evan was still twitchy, couldn't truly settle and couldn't shut up his brain enough on some days or keep his hands from shaking. He needed more, his desire to run, to flee from the ghosts chasing him and in his mind alone, he saw his friends in strangers and didn't sleep well again.

Sergeij made a cut when Evan got injured in a duel because his head had been too slow to react to the alarm signals his instincts were yelling at him, all because he had had too little sleep. Daniil and him got ordered into Sergeij's office and right away it became clear that whatever was going to be discussed Daniil was already in on it.

"Sit, boys," Sergeij started the conversation as calmly as he always did still and Evan and Daniil sat down in front of his desk, all windows in the room gave a beautiful view of snowy Moscow. "I called you in today because I think we all agree that things cannot go on like this." Sergeij was also always straight to the point, Evan winced, couldn't meet the old man's eyes. "I don't want to lose either of you, and I also don't want to lose my best team of agents. I know your past wasn't easy, Aleksi," Sergeij turned to him at last and Evan glanced up at him, grateful that Sergeij used his fake name even though he knew the truth, Evan wasn't ready yet for Daniil to know. "I know your gut is telling you to run and I know that sometimes running is the best thing you can do. For a while, if you have a place to come back to you. And I want to give you that. I've talked with Daniil a couple of days ago. There is an assignment I want to give you. A position so to say I want to place you both in."

Evan looked over to Daniil but his friend smiled at him, didn't look unhappy at all over what Sergeij must have talked over with him so Evan told his boss he was listening.

"Despite our best efforts, there are enough people who manage to leave the country before we can catch them. Now I won't say that some of those folks fleeing Russia aren't just people who are looking for a better life in the West, I don't particularly blame them." Sergeij was patriotic but there was only so much patience he could bring up still for the slowly crumbling Soviet Union, wizards and witches didn't get involved in muggle politics usually but times were getting dire and complicated and muggles felt the consequences harder than the magical community. "But I draw the line at criminals using the same ways. I will not have the western countries' magical communities suffer under our mistakes. So," Sergeij stopped for a short breath, "I am assigning you both to a position we hadn't had in a while to respect the muggles' distancing us from the rest of europe and the world. From tomorrow on you will hunt down those wizards and witches who slipped out of our fingers, who slipped out of the Union." Evan and Daniil both sat up straighter. "It's a job entirely off the books. We have no authority at all in those countries, and if you are caught you are entirely on your own. I cannot send anyone to help you out, I will have to renounce your belonging to this agency. Am I making the risks clear, boys?"

"Yes, Sir."

"If you say yes, you will do our country, our community a great honor. An honor that will never see the respect it publicly deserves but you will go to bed at night with the knowledge that you helped make our world a little bit safer." Sergeij's gaze zeroed in on Evan and he felt the message clear as day, he needed that, he needed it more than air right now. Making the world safer so Regulus would have that future he deserved. "Acting on your own also means basically no rules. We give you the targets but you two decide how. I only have three rules for you to follow: You keep clear of England, the Brits have a Law Enforcement Department that is still too much on alert after the pain they went through," and too many people could recognise Evan, "you keep clear of America for the same reason. They're too paranoid and on too much alert, if someone gets there, it's out of our hands for good. And the most important on, you two have each others' backs. I will not see one of you come back in a coffin while the other walks alongside it. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Alright then, what's your answer going to be?"

Evan wasn't surprised over the no time to think over it, Sergeij's whole intention behind this reassignment was to keep Evan from thinking too much about anything. And truth to be told, the offer was also way too good to be passed up on, he could be running and do good for their world. He could make a difference while ignoring the ghosts still gnawing at his heels. He could work against what the mark on his arm stood for.

"I'm in," he spoke up after a few seconds and Daniil seconded that decision only a short breath later, but he had also already had had time to think about it. They looked at each other and Evan knew that somewhere in the last weeks he had come to trust Daniil more than he had anyone since leaving Britain and letting Adrienna and Barty think he had died. Sergeij clapped his hands together and then told them letters would come for them soon with further instructions, their goodbyes drew out a little longer, it might be a long time before he saw the old man again who had given him a second chance so easily and despite all the baggage that Evan had come to Russia with.

Daniil and him left the Ministry that day with good moods and plans to go out for the night before letting tomorrow figure out what they needed now and how living arrangements could be made, all their department was going to give them in the future were names and monetary income.

They didn't know yet that one of them would never see Moscow ever again.

\--

After Adrienna hunted him down again and again, on one occasion handing his original wand back to him, she wore him down piece by piece until he finally gave up being pissed by her visits and instead found himself wanting to see her again. No matter how brief it always was. And after the sixth or seventh one, Evan even stopped avoiding the topic Adrienna was so desperate in bringing up.

"He attacked me," he said one night when they were walking along the Neris in Lithuania's capital Vilnius, far away from where Daniil was sleeping out a headache in their rented room. "I know that isn't what you want to hear but Fenwick came at me. I'm not keen on repeating right now what words flew between us, because yes," Evan emphasized when Adrienna raised an eyebrow to show her surprise, "we argued first. We ran into each other in London, I needed to clear my head before I met up with my brothers again, so I walked a bit. I guess that Fenwick was on order patrol."

He raised the arm Adrienna wasn't leaning on to rub a hand over his face, "I was exhausted, everyone was running me ragged, Silas was paranoid that I was harboring some desires to disappear. Which he wasn't wrong about but I was trying my best to turn his attention away from that. I don't know what had crawled over Fenwick's mood, it's not like I had an insight into his life. Whatever it was, he needed a target." His explanation was met with Adrienna tightening her lips and Evan stopped her, turning her around so they could face each other better. "Adri, I know this can't be easy to hear but I have no reason to lie to you. I'm telling you the truth here."

"What did you fight about?"

"You," Evan answered to what should be no one's surprise, at least not between them, "we fought about you. And Julienna. He blamed me that you had pulled away from him, that he couldn't meet his daughter. I tried to reason with him, told him that you made your own decisions and that though I agreed with them, it didn't mean I had talked anything into your ears." It was true, Adrienna's decision to pull away from Fenwick for good and make a cut to that forbidden relationship had been her decision and her decision alone. To protect herself and to most of all protect her daughter.

It would have been a death sentence if her husband had found out at that time that she had cheated on him and given him a daughter who wasn't his own. A death sentence for Adrienna and a baby.

"Benjy didn't want to listen?"

"No. I don't know what it was, he was certainly heartbroken and missing you and angry over it. Maybe there was Order stuff going on as well. I think it was a few days after Dearborn had gone missing, maybe they had been friends." Evan could only guess at it, even though the public and most of all the Order had blamed Caradoc Dearborn going missing on the Death Eaters but no one had taken a claim on it, not even within their ranks and it was highly unlikely that someone would just keep quiet over killing an Order member. "Anyway, he was pissed, he didn't like my answers or my attitude and then he attacked me but I didn't fight to kill, and neither did he. He needed a target to get his frustrations out and I provided that, we fought to hurt but not to kill."

"So how..."

"An accident. His shield deflected a curse wrong and it hit him very poorly against a fence, he was dead very much instantly." Evan didn't soften the blow, Adrienna had never been a weepy girl who had needed to be sheltered from unpleasantness and now as a woman that was even less the case. "I... I could only stand there, couldn't comprehend what had happened. It was like nothing in me was working anymore, that's when Silas and Dominic found me."

"So it was them who..."

"Silas and Dominic both acted while I was still too numb to even realize they were there. When I understood what they were intending to do, I tried to stop them but it was too late. Dominic whisked me away so Silas could finish the job," he said the last part while avoiding Adrienna's eyes because he still got sick just thinking about. How proud his brothers had been. How little they had been interested in what had really happened before they had arrived. How they had boasted that their baby brother had finally proven himself. How even Barty had looked at Evan with prouder eyes.

Evan had only known one thing when he had finally been allowed to be alone that night.

The only way to get out of this was to die.

"Our girls are becoming friends," Adrienna changed the topic so abruptly that Evan was left reeling for a second, still caught in memories and words he hadn't thought about in a long time. "Silvan brought Serena to one of the charity events my sister-in-law housed. They've already met before but this time, with Hogwarts on the horizon, they really hit it off. And I think Julienna will be good for Serena, she's alone in that house too much. And don't worry, Evan," Adrienna dug into the frown lines that crossed over his face when he thought about how old Serena already was now, that Hogwarts was coming for her this fall. "Regulus promised he would keep a good eye on them. Julienna is his good-daughter and though he may not know the truth, he knows Serena as your niece and he'll protect her, too. And I don't see her landing anywhere else but Slytherin anyway, she'll make her way under his sheltering hands."

It was a soothing thought, to know that Regulus was there to watch over Serena, that it would be him as a house head she would go to with her worries and problems. But still, his daughter would soon turn eleven, would not long after go to Hogwarts, she was growing up so much and all of it was happening away from him.

"You know," Adrienna started again when she must have noticed how silent he had gotten, "I may not be able yet to forgive you because one day I will have to face my daughter and explain to her that her real father was killed by one of my best friends, accident or not. And said best friend is also now related to her new best friend. But just because I'm not there yet, doesn't in any way mean you can't start forgiving yourself. Evan, it's been so long, and you're still drowning in guilt over things that were completely out of your control, now that I know I can even add Benjy to that list. You have to forgive yourself, you have to move on. The world isn't resting on your shoulders."

If only she knew the truth.

About dangerous dark artifacts that put the weight of the world on your shoulders.

"I'm working on it," he told her honestly in response and Adrienna gifted him with a small smile, "you remember a time where we were so sure that no one would ever dictate our lives? That we were the best of the best and that we were gonna rule the world one day? And now look where our decisions and our mistakes brought us to."

"We made mistakes, I agree, but it didn't curse all of us for life." Adrienna disagreed with his dark outlook, "Marc went for his dream and maybe it's an unusual one but he still holds the respect of many people from both sides. Regulus is a frigging teacher and he's writing these articles now, the ones I showed you. He gained a voice and a lot of people are finally seeing him for who he really is. I was stupid in school, I made stupid decisions but I would never regret that it got me Julienna. I love being a Mum but I'm also not blind anymore to the things going on around me, and I won't keep silent over them either. And you? Look at the good you're doing, Evan. That curse you're hinting at? It only hit Barty, and he still landed where he is because of his own choices."

They returned to walking again, silence between them for a few minutes, Evan knew that he would have to return to Daniil soon, work was waiting and he wasn't the kind to slip out for too long without it being for a run.

"Before we say goodbye, there is something I wanna do," Adrienna mentioned when Evan stopped her by another bench at the riverside, reminding her that he needed to go back. He gestured for her to go ahead and then found himself down on one knee in the next two seconds, right side of his jaw pounding in pain and Adrienna holding her right hand to her chest with a grimace. "Now I can start forgiving you for Benjy."

\--

On one of the missions they wrapped up successfully by capturing the wanted wizard in his hideout in rural Italy, Evan stumbled upon a collection of old books that reeked of dark magic. On a whim and also mostly because he didn't want them to fall into any irresponsible hands, he packed them up and told himself to take a closer look at them when they were back in their current temporary home arrangement.

Either he would get rid of them for good, have them send to Sergeij for his collection or even keep them himself, as Regulus had always pointed out. It weren't the books that were dangerous, nor was it their content, it was the way people acted with the knowledge gained from them. Books usually didn't kill people.

When the wizard was sent off and Daniil volunteered to make them something to eat, Evan took one of the books and sat himself down on the balcony to read a little.

And then he read some more.

And every word let the horror in him grow and grow and grow.

When he had discovered that Voldemort had made horcruxes he had been disgusted beyond belief, something so cruel and forbidden, even among the pureblood ranks. No one talked about horcruxes, that kind of dark evil magic had been forbidden and hidden away from public knowledge for a very good reason.

But if this was true... He had believed that whatever Regulus had found and hopefully destroyed was the only thing next to the cup Evan had found and hidden away himself. His logic had prevailed that Regulus might have found something from Slytherin, together with the cup from Hufflepuff, that would have been two important artifacts. Ravenclaw's legacies had been lost and Voldemort wouldn't touch Gryffindor's, that had been Evan's logic, that was why he had stopped looking.

But if horcruxes.... if those vile things could be put into living beings?

And the thought that crossed his mind then filled him with much dread because hadn't Lily Potter been killed so very briefly before Voldemort had turned his wand on her infant son and left the child with a mark on his forehead that everyone knew about. Hadn't Voldemort vanished the moment that he had tried to kill Harry Potter, no trace ever found...

Had love truly saved the boy or cursed him terribly?


	4. Pre-Act - Part II

**Summer of 1991 to Summer of 1994 – A Life in Hiding – Part II**

When it became clear that the Soviet Union was going to crumble before the year was out, Evan and Daniil moved back to St.Petersburg because soon enough the iron curtain was gonna fall and they wouldn't need to slip unseen over hard borders anymore to catch wayward wizard and witches. And it also felt good to come back home in a way, to have something steady again, they had become such good friends and worked so well together on a daily basis now that Daniil hadn't thought once about moving back to Moscow.

The Department still send them targets and they went out like hunters, even though they didn't hunt to kill but to capture, killing was allowed but only in dire circumstances. Innocents threatened. Their lives threatened with now way out. In the last years they had only needed to reach for that ultimate step once.

Evan felt stable again with himself, returning to St.Petersburg had been a good step, the right decision for the right time, even if it meant that his little guest popped right back in.

"I have a roommate now," were Evan's first word when he stopped on his morning run as Adrienna stepped out from behind a tree in the summer garden. One of the entrances into the magical subhub of the city was centered right here, so Evan had chosen it years ago to remain active. "If you wanna talk, we're gonna have to do it here."

"The handsome man you've been partnered up with for your job?" Adrienna wanted to know, smile a mile wide, and Evan gritted his teeth but also nodded, reluctantly. "How interesting. I thought I'd just check in again. Julienna is in Hogwarts and Laureen with friends, and my father had an errand for me to run."

"In Russia?" Evan deadpanned his question and then walked over to a bench so they could sit down, Adrienna rolled her eyes but followed him and sat down. Dressed prim and perfect as always, even in summer heat, he didn't know it any different from her.

"Strictly speaking it was Sweden but if someone asks, I'll just say his informant had been a little misinformed about the artifacts' true placement," Adrienna explained to him and Evan shouldn't have been surprised, exit strategies had been her thing. They, the boys, had known how to get into stuff and places, how to get what they needed or wanted but their girl had gotten them out. "So, how are you doing?"

"Seriously?" He demanded to know, ticking up an eyebrow, "you came here to ask me how I am doing. No ulterior motive? No double game?" She expectantly kept looking at him and Evan huffed, "I'm good. I'm actually good. My job is doing great, I have a friend. I feel good... How are things over for you?" Adrienna chuckled and then leaned back, smile going a little softer.

"Reg found a girl," she got out with the best news Evan could have gotten from her, "he is totally pretending she isn't his girlfriend but she is, even Kreacher says so. And wait for it," Adrienna leaned in, smile turning into a smirk, "she is a muggle."

Evan blinked and then laughed, right from his stomach, happiness curling around it, a muggle girlfriend, Regulus really had found his own path, given a big fuck you to the forces who had always tried to shape him into something he wasn't.

"Single-Mom on top of it, her baby isn't even a year yet. Her little boy is utterly adorable, at least that is what Reg says, he's still keeping her from us." Adrienna's nose gave a little twitch, her noisy curiosity burning right under the surface, Evan could only smile, Regulus deserved to get that happiness so much. "He's gone on her, completely, loves that boy of hers as well. I can see that in the way he talks about her, he's happy."

"And Marc?"

"Same as ever, loves his plants more than anyone wearing a skirt, driving his father nuts, especially because his brother isn't any better. That one would rather chase after tombs than women," Adrienna chuckled and Evan smiled even more, turning his face into the sun. "Marc and Reg though are... they're good together, working on something together that they won't tell me about." Evan might have a hunch what those two were working on but he wasn't going to tell Adrienna, Regulus would have his reasons to keep her protected from it.

But it proved that there had to be more... so his fears were true.

"Your father is doing well, too," Adrienna went on because she didn't know the horror she had just unleashed in Evan's head who needed to settle his fear on relying that Regulus had to know what he was doing. "Sarena is doing well in school. Stevan seems to have turned into a troublemaker a little but nothing that goes beyond usual pureblood brats." Evan grimaced, truth to be told he hadn't expected anything different, his father was a decent man but his sister-in-law was not a good person and Stevan was definitely old enough to remember his father from before Silas had gone to Azkaban. It was something that the boy's mother would have let him become bitter about. "Sarena though is just the sweetest, smart and so quick. She's all you."

Evan swallowed heavily, happiness mixing with sadness as always when Adrienna gave him those tidbits about his daughter's life.

"And get this, Evan, Marc told me that Reg became friends with Remus Lupin," Adrienna added right after that because she understood that though he wanted to know about his little girl, it hurt too much to linger on it. He snapped his head around to stare at her, words needing a second go-around in his head until they truly registered. "Yeah, that was about how I looked, too. But admittedly, Lupin always was the least worst one out of the bunch. And also, ultimately, that group of friends broke apart worse than we did. Potter and Pettigrew murdered by Black's betrayal and his own hand respectively. I don't want to imagine how Lupin has to feel still."

"I figure Marc might know."

"Yeah, but that was different, wasn't it? Marc turned his back on us in Sixth Year because of the marks on your arms and because I didn't say anything against it," Adrienna summed it up quite well. "And then, superficially yes, two boys died, the third went to Azkaban because of the terrible crime he committed. But! Aside from us knowing that at least both deaths weren't actually real, none of you turned on each other. Barty didn't get either of you killed, least of all did he raise his wand himself against one of you."

Evan kept to himself that if Barty had known at any point after Regulus' 'death' what had went on in Evan's mind, he would have raised his wand against him. Nothing was ever more important to Barty than loyalty and dedication, first to their group of friends, later on to Bellatrix and Voldemort.

"I don't think any of us ever stopped since all of it happened and wondered if we had ever known the real Barty," Adrienna said correctly and Evan had to give it to her, she was right in that. "He didn't one day snap and surprised everyone with his actions, even the other side. Barty began to escalate after Reg's death, I give you that, we both saw it, but honestly Evan, so did you." Adrienna sent him that familiar look, "you both lost your grounding force, went out of control, Barty more than you. And then after you died, Barty had absolutely nothing to lose anymore."

"He had you," Evan disagreed, "you can't deny that Barty and you had a close bond. Closer than you had one with any of the rest of us, which is why I never understood why you kept your pregnancy secret from him until after graduation and why he never knew about Benjy."

"Barty was protective of me, what do you think he would have done if he had known about Benjy?" Adrienna posed the rhetorical question that Evan knew the answer to very well himself, all of them had been protective of Adrienna but contrary to Barty the rest of them had always stuck to being aware that she could very well handle her own fights, risks and arguments.

Barty would have killed Fenwick if he had so much as only posed a risk to Adrienna's happiness and health, and it wouldn't have been an accident for sure.

"How are you doing?" He wanted to know then after they had fallen a little bit into silence, he would have to come up with an excuse on why he had been staying out longer than usual. Daniil knew him too well to swallow 'ran into an acquaintance'. All of Aleksi's acquaintances were people from work and hence it wouldn't make any sense on why he hadn't just brought them back to the apartment to catch up.

Evan's mind shifted rather abruptly to the situation at hand again though when his question wasn't followed up with an answer for a good whole minute and Adrienna just simply stared down at her hands.

"Adri?" He asked with worry slipping into his voice, their friendship had forever changed when Evan had killed Fenwick. They would never be the same, trust had cracked, voices would never lose that last touch of hostility and venom. But they were still friends and Evan would still drop anything if he heard that one of his old friends needed help, he'd be back in a blink of an eye if one of their lives was at stake, disregarding the sentence that would mean for him. "What's going on?"

"I think that something is crawling around in the shadows again, I don't know what but I don't like it." Adrienna began and then jumped into telling him about her husband's secret meetings, her father's uprise in questionable customers and whispers in social gatherings. When she was done, visibly relieved over having talked about it, Evan took her hand and clearly surprised her with that gesture, for Adrienna's eyes snapped up to meet his again.

"If anything ever happens and you need to get yourself to safety, a safety that Reg or Marc can't provide for you, you come straight to me. You grab your girls and you come straight to me."

\--

When they got the case that led them straight to Bulgaria, Evan had already been half decided that this was going to be too difficult and too risky. He had wrecked his head to find a suitable excuse to have Daniil and him take a step back. Bulgaria had already been the European hotspot for dark magic before Evan had been born, long before his father had even been born, the laws had been lax and the means had been plentiful.

Little had changed in the latter since the muggles' wars and the formation of the Soviet Union, it was the first though that had drastically been reformed because now the Russians set the tone, in the magical communities as well. And as more liberal as the Russians were concerning the use of dark magic, they still had rules and if those got broken, the authorities came in and in some more difficult cases that meant Daniil and Evan.

But the allure of having freedom within the dark arts had still pulled a lot of Voldemort sympathizers over from England and Evan was not in the mood to run into any of them. He hadn't been one of the young ones who had stood out like Barty because of his enthusiam or Dominic Avery for his ruthlessness. Evan had belonged to the crowd of young ones that Voldemort had wanted and needed for their names, like Regulus as well.

And if those people saw him now, alive where he should be dead, he would become a traitor to them in that very second, for he had not disappeared from England after the war. He had gone when Voldemort's terror reign had more or less been at its highest point.

And though he had thought about if often in the last months, Evan still didn't know how to tell Daniil the truth about himself.

When he couldn't bring up a good enough reason to stop their departure, Daniil and him left for Varna anyway, and within the first three hours of getting a feeling for the layout of the city, they ran into Igor Karkaroff.

Which, of course they did.

He froze. Evan froze. And regretted everything about having laid down his disguises since Daniil had gotten too confused by them.

He had grown, and changed, of curse he had, Karkaroff had last seen him at eighteen, and no eighteen year old still looked eighteen at twenty eight. Evan knew his face had gotten sharper, his hair was longer, his clothes rougher when he was out in official matters.

"Rosier," Karkaroff snarled and Daniil looked so confused but still had his wand drawn and a shielf brought up to deflect the curse Karkaroff sent for Evan – or from Daniil's point of view, sent for Aleksi, someone who certainly usually didn't prompt random strangers to attack out of the blue.

"The fuck," was hence also Daniil's verbal reaction when Karkaroff's curse got deflected towards a house wall and made an alarming crack, Evan willed his brain to start working again. "What the hell is going on here?"

Karkaroff was not their target, if that name had stood within the mission debrief then Evan would have written Sergeij and they would have gotten reassigned to another case. It had been a condition he had insisted on in private with Sergeij, do not send him after Death Eaters. The man they were after wasn't even supposed to return to Varna until tomorrow, which is why they had wanted to get the best outlook on the city layout as possible today.

"Not so dead, aren't we now?" Karkaroff went on in broken English and Daniil could not have possibly looked any more confused, still holding his shield charm up steadily, eyes flickering between the threat and Evan. "I would be surprised but doesn't it say to never underestimate the quiet ones? After all, Black isn't dead either. What happened there? Little falling out, a full continent between you two now? Never managed to fit a paper in that gap before."

"Igor," was all Evan said, voice detached of emotions, just like a greeting you gave something you rather would have ignored at a charity dinner. "You have attacked a member of the Soviet Magical Law Enforcement Department under no given threat."

"You are under arrest until further discipline measures can be evoked," Daniil flawlessly took over, even if he still looked like they might be talking in bloody Chinese for how much he understood the situation. "Please set your wand to the ground and give yourself over to be properly detained."

"You're kidding me?" Karkaroff spit out and he actually laughed, "this some kind of joke? The snake got a fancy badge now to detain the bad guys? Fighting fire with fire, Rosier?"

"Mister," Daniil growled and he dropped the confusion in light of Karkaroff not cooperating with his orders, "I am warning you..."

"And I am warning you to stay clear out of my way if you want to keep your head, boy," Karkaroff turned his anger onto Daniil whose face turned into a thundercloud, Evan let his wand drop out of his sleeve. "You think a lightweight like you can take me with your fancy laws and orders? I'm not surroundering to nothing and nobody anymore."

Karkaroff lashed out first but only because Daniil wouldn't do it, had learned to control himself and be defensive rather than on the offense with instable people. Evan was right there and quickly let this become his fight, if someone got hurt in this it would be Evan, he had deserved this, Karkaroff was going off because of him. And he wasn't pulling his magical punches either, went right ahead with the dark curses that were all banned in Britain, there had been a reason on why he had always gotten along so well with Dolohov.

Their education had been so different.

Spells and curses flew and soon enough they would gain attention from the public and they were in a frigging muggle area. Evan sent a look towards Daniil and despite still being confused as fuck no doubt, Daniil still reacted quick and fast and together they had Karkaroff quickly pushed into a corner.

So fast indeed that the man lost his cloak and hence revealed his bar forearms.

Especially the left one.

Daniil's gasp at the sight of the faded Dark Mark sent chills right down to Evan's core and he stuttered in his shield charm for a moment, long enough for Karkaroff to find his opening and sent a shocker in Evan's direction that he couldn't deflect properly anymore. He was swept off his feet and sent flying against a house wall, breath knocked out of him for a good long moment and him forced to watch as Daniil snarled and got angry now.

Daniil was a great dueler, he was skilled beyond the usual level, you had to be if you wanted to become a hitwizard and though Evan knew he was a good fighter, too, he had always felt just about passable compared to Daniil. And if Daniil got angry, he became nearly unstoppable. Karkaroff got to feel that as well, quickly now he got pushed to the ground, disarmed and then held at wandpoint.

"Stop," Evan yelled out when his lungs weren't burning anymore, as non-existent as his grief would be over seeing Karkaroff taken out, he couldn't let it happen. He had done so much, tortured muggles for the fun of it, tried out perverse and horrifying ideas with Dolohov on captured muggles and muggleborn, and he had gotten away for dropping some names in his trial.

Karkaroff needed justice.

He needed a trial in a system that wasn't weakened post-war and corrupted by wrong influences.

When Daniil didn't react, Evan forced himself to his feet and he struggled over to his partner, this was a chance to make a difference, to righten what the pureblood influences in the British Wizengamot hadn't been able to do after the war. Karkaroff had gotten away because he had ratted other people out, because they hadn't known what crimes he had really done, Evan had read up all about it.

"Stop," he yelled again and forced Daniil's wand hand down, "killing him won't give him the judgement he deserves. We'll let justice rule, we're taking him in." And Daniil looked at him for a moment as if he was convinced his friend had lost his fucking mind but then Daniil took a breath and waved it away to be dealt with at a later point. Instead he waved his wand and bound Karkaroff in cuffs he couldn't break out of while Evan magically alerted the agency.

\--

Sergeij turned up personally to collect Igor and bring him back to Moscow to see what the higher ups wanted done with him. The thing in the end was that Voldemort had never managed to terrorize the world outside of Great Britain that much, he hadn't enmassed foreigners as followers, being a Death Eater wasn't something illegal outside of Britain.

But as it turned out Karkaroff had jumped into following Voldemort to escape the persacution he had been under in his sweet sweet home of Soviet Union. He was going to pay for his crimes now, and Evan didn't care if it was the one committed here or as a Death Eater, he was going to get justice, that was what mattered.

When Daniil and him got home though, it became clear that as satisfying as watching Karkaroff be led off had been, this upcoming conversation might just turn out to be the most frightening one Evan had to had in a long time. Daniil had been quiet as they had waited for Sergeij and then even more silent on the way home.

Right until that moment when the door was closed behind Evan and Daniil turned around to look at him.

"You know why I never asked?" Daniil started and Evan felt like he could slide to the ground he felt so weak, "because sometimes people make mistakes, decisions that they later come to regret. And by the time I found out that you're a man without a past, I already knew that you were a decent one, that you were one of the good ones." Evan flinched right there and Daniil's eyes tracked it all, contrary to Evan basically stumbling into the job as a spy and hitman, Daniil had been properly trained as a hitwizard before joining Sergeij's sub-department. "I take it that assessment might not have always held true?"

In response Evan took off his jacket and curled up his left sleeve, showing Daniil the faded mark, the same one Karkaroff had obviously carried as well.

"How old were you?" Daniil reacted rather calm, grabbing Evan's right arm and pulling him over to the one couch they had. It wasn't the biggest apartment, they were gone so often that they didn't need the space or many luxuries, the basics worked just fine. "You're younger than me and I hadn't even finished my second year at the Academy when Voldemort was defeated."

"Fifteen," Evan answered as they sat down, "I was fifteen, two of my best friends joined alongside me. They were sixteen."

Daniil's eyes told stories about his shock and Evan just launched into the story, beginning with "my real name is Evan Rosier." And then, he just came clean, he told Daniil everything, he told him more than anyone else knew, especially about the life he had led post Regulus' fake death.

It just felt right.

Daniil listened, asked questions sometimes, showed his shock and his understanding and his surprise, but he never judged, not at any point. There was contempt, there was no hatred and Evan felt himself talking easier and easier as the minutes went by. And then just without noticing two hours had passed, at which point Evan felt drained but also good, like a weight had finally been lifted off his chest that had been there so long that he had grown used to its burden. Now the relief was almost euphoric.

Which might explain on why he found himself on his back on the couch not three minutes later, hands twisted into Daniil's dark hair and them kissing like their lives depended on it but maybe it was also just something that had been slowly happening anyway.

\--

When Adrienna turned up for the first time after Evan had come clean to Daniil and they had gotten together, he actually invited her back to their place and introduced the both of them. Adrienna looked stunned but also brushed it off rather quickly to make conversation, falling to Daniil's easy charme as well after only a few minutes.

After Daniil had headed out though to give them some time to talk in private, Adrienna's whole facade changed so quickly that Evan sat down unprompted and listened. Listened to grave news about troubled tidings from his homeland.

None of it though at first beat the tidbit of news about Hogwarts that Adrienna almost glossed over.

"Wait a second, back up there," Evan interrupted her and leaned closer across the kitchen table, "did you just say there is a basilisk at Hogwarts? How the bloody fuck did that happen?" He wanted to know, head spinning wildly, his daughter was there, his daughter's friends, Regulus.

"Apparently it has always been there. Deep down in the dungeons, in a place called the Chamber of Secrets." Adrienna explained and Evan gaped at her, mind completely blank. "They have it under control for now, are even working on an antidote for the petrified students."

"But how could that thing even get out?"

"Regulus is entirely clueless over how the chamber could have been opened. Legend says only the true heir of Slytherin can do so. And for all my knowledge that line is dead." Adrienna supplied and Evan felt sick because he knew who had been the last descendant of Slytherin's thinned out line and he might not be as completely dead as people might think. "Hogwarts is full of rumors though. The little Malfoy, the Potter boy, some even think Regulus might be the one."

"I hope he is having a good laugh about it," Evan grouched and dragged a hand down his face, by Rasputin's head, a basilisk at Hogwarts, the things you... "Wait again, why would they think Potter could be a candidate? You told me the boy bleeds Gryffindor, the Potters are purebloods, yeah, but they've been Gryffindors as far as you can look back." Evan reminded them both of James Potter's repeated and repeated and repeated pride over it. He sighed and picked up his coffee again.

"He's a Parseltongue."

And there went that coffee all over the table.

"He is a WHAT?"

There was another part of the puzzle for that horcrux theory.

"Yeah, showed off that skill in dueling club, supposedly on accident. That poor boy, really can't get any time to just be a kid." Adrienna sighed, the mother in her showing through, Evan was torn between worry for his own child and horror over what the Potter boy was submitted to without knowing, without probably no one else but Evan knowing about it in the first place. He was also aware that the chances for Harry Potter to be just a kid had died the moment his mother's sacrifice had let him become the person to end Voldemort's terror.

The savior baby had never had a chance to be just a kid.

A cruel fate now for a boy of only twelve.

"As worrying as the basilisk is though, I am holding a much more troubled eye on what was goes on in our old hunting grounds," Adrienna brought them back on track and Evan forced himself to focus again. "Marc is doing his best to have an open ear in the pureblood circles. Regulus obviously can't and I won't hear what I have to hear."

"And you really think that they are colluding with each other again? Hashing out plans, all in the name of a Dark Lord who has been gone for eleven year now?" Evan wanted to know, hating that Adrienna immediately caught the doubt in his voice. "Listen, I'm not saying you are overreacting. Malfoy is seemingly up to something and Fudge as a Minister is a nightmare and incapable of doing something against anything but... Adrienna, you know what risks it has if you go to the authorities with this and you end up being wrong? You are accusing your own husband of having joined a revival of the Death Eaters."

"I know what I am doing, I know that it is risky but what do you want me to do?" Adrienna wanted to know and set her own cup down again with a thud, "ignore it? Let my daughters be dragged into it? Just watch as he sells them off to become some trophy to show off to like Narcissa Malfoy? I will not let that happen. Julienna and Laureen are too smart, too good and too kind for that. And I'm not the one who is gonna dig into this pit of doom and seek more proof before any authorities get made aware of it."

"So who will you choose? Regulus can't do it, Marc doesn't have the guts for it and..."

"You could come home." Adrienna proposed into the room like it was something making so much sense to finish the sentence with that, to solve her problems like that.

Evan wanted to help her, he wanted to protect his own family and friends if the old ways came back but...

He glanced over at the empty tea cup Daniil always forgot to carry back into the kitchen after he had it in the mornings on the couch, he glanced at the tossled blankets from where they had begun the morning slow today. At the one picture of them that Daniil had hung up only a few days ago, that one picture where they had finally managed that neither of them looked like an idiot. At the clothes from both of them that just always ended up strewn around the place, no matter how many times they cleaned it up.

He spotted the sweater hanging over a kitchen chair, the green one where they couldn't remember anymore who had owned it first.

"Adri, I... I can't," Evan said at last and looked back to Adrienna brown eyes, "I can't go back now, my life... my life is here now, I'm finally managing to get my head on straight. I have Daniil. I can be happy here. I can make an actual difference from here." And Adrienna walked over to him, wrapped him into a warm hug. "I'm not alone in this mess of a life anymore, Adri, I can't throw that away. My protection and help will come from afar."

"I fully understand."

\--

On a rainy summer day in '93, curled up on the couch with music in the background to deafen out the thundering of rain against window panes, Evan was dozing the day away in Daniil's arms. They had wrapped up an exhausting case only last night and were both hoping for a few days off to recharge their energy and their magic.

They were sore, they were tired, just plain rubbed raw.

A peaceful retreat to the silence of their home was exactly what they needed for a little while, so it was of course then that the fireplace sizzled with a floo network knock and they both tensed. Their fireplace was connected to only one other, the one in Sergeij's study in his house in Adler. They exchanged a look and then untangled themselves from each other so they could sit up, Daniil reached for his wand and sent the invitation to come over.

Sergeij appeared not a moment later and from just one look, Evan knew that something terrible had occured.

And when Sergeij actually took a seat before even saying a word Evan braced himself to hear that one of his friends had died or that Daniil had lost someone again.

But nothing, nothing could have prepared Evan for what Sergeij actually had to say.

"There has been an escape from Azkaban."

It wooshed over Evan's head at first while Daniil already grew stock still, because hah, funny joke, no one could escape Azkaban. The only way out was death and even then you ended up in an anonymous grave in an undisclosed location to prevent pilgrimage of wrongful admirers. No one broke out of Azkaban, in the long long run of Azkaban, no one had ever broken out.

Attempted, sure, Evan knew the stories that they were told by first years by candlelight to frighten their new roommates.

But no one passed by a dementor and got away with it.

They didn't let people go, it wasn't in their nature.

And no one could conjure a patronus without a wand, it just wasn't possible.

"Who escaped?" Daniil wanted to know, his hand rubbing over Evan's arm because Evan still couldn't move. Someone had broken out of Azkaban.

"Someone I know?" Evan croaked out when Sergeij hesitated because the choices were endless, weren't they, so many people whom he had once known, friends, even family, so many people in Azkaban.

Evan couldn't even decide whose name he wanted to hear the least.

Dolohov. Bellatrix. Silas. Dominic.

Even Barty.

Evan didn't want any of them to be on the run, to be out there and able to hurt people again. Friends and family, so many of them still in Britain. His father. Sarena. Adrienna. Her daughters. Regulus. His little family. Marculus.

"It's Sirius Black."

And there was an unwanted name after all who took first place among his fears.

The traitor.

The one where no one knew where he stood.

The one who had snapped.

The one who had deceived both sides until the very end.

The one who had murdered two of his own best friends, his brothers.

Regulus' brother who had never wanted to be his brother after meeting that damn Potter boy.

Merlin, Rasputin and all, he couldn't even imagine how Regulus had to feel right now, just as he had finally managed to get a good life, to get a chance at having a family and be happy, with his job going so good, with him finding a voice for himself so he could make a difference in his own special way. Why did fate have to decide to throw a wrench into those plans again?

Why did it want to keep pushing him down?

Regulus deserved none of that.

"Evan?" Daniil's voice reached him at the same time as Daniil also gently curled a hand around Evan's right wrist, "hey, you with me?"

"Do we know how long ago?" Evan shook himself free and focused on facts, giving Daniil a little smile to show that he could hold it together for now. He had to. He had no way of contacting Adrienna, it only worked the other way around.

He couldn't reach out to Marc or Regulus.

He had to concentrate on what he could do.

And that was his job.

"From the information the British have given us, it has been five days. They were reluctant in handing out the news sooner to avoid an unnecessary panic," Sergeij explained and Evan felt a chill creep up his back. "But now where they apparently have already run out of patience in finding him or are afraid to lose face even more in the international community they have reached out to every law enforcement department in europe. Which means that I have gotten the missive about an hour ago, with the clear order from up high that I am to set my best agents on it. Though I'm wondering if I can entrust this order to my best team?"

"He was never my friend," Evan answered him and met Sergeij's eyes without trouble now, "we stood on two different sides in the war. I was a Death Eater, he was a vigilante. And then I defected and he snapped. You will not see me hesitate to..."

"The order is dead or alive. Capture or neutralize the threat," Sergeij took the breath out of him for a good few seconds, "the British would prefer him alive but our President doesn't agree, he sees Black a threat too great to solely focus on capturing him to hand back over to the British. Are you sure you're alright with this, Evan? Just because you weren't friends with him, it doesn't mean you didn't grow up with him, that you knew him."

"I believed that Sirius Black was an obnoxious reckless idiot who nevertheless was a white knight for the good side. I obviously never knew him at all," Evan concluded and then held out his hand, Sergeij looked at him for a moment longer and then pulled the missive from his own boss out of his pockets to set it onto Evan's open palm. Evan took it and quickly read over the cyrillic letters with Daniil joining him over his shoulder.

The order was simple enough, they were from now on ordered to keep their eyes and ears wide open for any sign or word of Sirius Black. They were told to follow every little piece of information that could lead to finding Sirius Black and then to take every measure available to them to either capture or neutralize him.

And as the President had also ordered: under no circumstances were they to put their lives at risk to capture Black over killing him.

Dead or alive for Black, but alive for them, always alive for themselves.

"Dani?"

"I'm in if you are. I want this bastard caught again." Daniil told him and squeezed Evan's shoulder, Evan looked down at the missive again and then nodded.

'I'll still protect you, Reggie, with everything I have. With everything I can do from here, nothing and no one will touch you or your family if I have something to do against it.'

"I'm in, too."

\--

'Sirius was framed by Peter Pettigrew who was never dead but an animagus. No one dies anymore. From here on on I will be going to funeral in a whole new frame of mind. Seriously though, I'll explain everything better the next time I come around, just take for now that Sirius was never a threat, that all he wanted was for the truth to be revealed. Reg and him are gonna try and work on making up, but it's gonna take time.

Tell you more when we see each other,

Adri'

"Your friend really has a skill in answering one question by throwing up a hundred more."

"Tell me about it."

And despite fourteen years having passed since he had last seen Regulus, a very petty part in Evan's mind was only saying 'he is my brother, you never wanted him to be yours, don't pretend you can have him now where I'm gone.'

\--

'...I would have come by, I was certainly close enough, but I fear that my current objective would have only made you too curious. I need to look for something right now, it might be good for us, it might also not, I'm not sure yet. I can't tell you what I'm chasing down but it's hopefully gonna be making sense in a while. You don't need to worry though, I'll be perfectly safe at all times. It's just something I'll need closure over because otherwise it's going to drive me insane if it remains in the unknown.

I'll come and visit on my way back to England.

With love,

Adrienna'

Evan set the letter to the side and frowned a little over its content, it wasn't by far the first letter that Adrienna had somehow managed to get to him over the years, only now Evan didn't need to hide them from Daniil any longer. He was more than confused over his friend's current actions, it really wasn't her style to be gone from England so much while times got darker there again and her daughters were smack in the middle.

It wasn't making any sense.

And what was making even less sense was the vivid flashback it brought him to a conversation he had had a little while after Regulus' death when Evan, too, had struggled with getting closure over something that was framed by so many question marks.

_Evan hadn't left his room since stepping back into it an hour after the funeral had been over with, frankly he hadn't left his bed since coming back home. His mother had come in at some point and pushed the blankets over him to have him stop shivering but he hadn't even really been aware of it, his head was too far away. Six feet under with a body who would never breathe again, eyes that would never be rolled again, lips that would never smile again._

_His family mostly left him alone and Evan wasn't sure anymore if that was the best thing they could have done before being alone meant being alone with his thoughts and Evan didn't like where they were heading towards. They still had no idea at all how Regulus had died and it just felt so wrong, so incredibly wrong to not have answers, to have rumors flying around, to have blame laid at the feet of dozens without any proof._

_And Evan couldn't get happy with the promises of vengeance and justice, he just needed answers, he just wanted one simple answer over who had killed his best friend but he just didn't get anything._

_When it knocked on his open door, Evan only belatedly turned his head to look and found Barty's equally shadowed face looking back at him, a small smile on his lips showing that he had worked himself out of the stupor though that still held Evan captive. "Hey," Barty greeted him quietly and walked into the room when Evan didn't protest, pulling the door close to give them some privacy. "I found out why Adrienna wasn't at the funeral." Barty went on and sat down on the foot of the bed, looking down at Evan with a look that tried to mask his horror and worry, which he was greatly failing at. "She had the baby, born the day Regulus vanished."_

_Evan briefly closed his eyes and took a shuttering breath._

_Henceforth born the day Regulus had died._

_"Boy or girl?" Evan wanted to know because even he was being torn apart by pain and loss and knowing that he had failed in the one thing he had always promised himself to do, he didn't want to not feel some tidbit of joy for Adrienna. He knew how difficult it was, he knew how great the danger was still, if her husband suspected only the smallest thing she would pay with her life._

_"It's a girl, born a little too early but mother and daughter are doing very well," Barty explained and Evan could see nothing in his eyes that hinted at him knowing about Adrienna's secret. Though he had never understood why she hadn't wanted Barty or Regulus to know, he had respected her decision to keep it between them only. "She told me to give you her condolences and that she wants you to visit when you feel up to it. She understands if it will take time. How are you holding up, mate?"_

_And Evan turned his look into a glare, surely way less heat in it than he could have conjured up just a week ago but Barty scoffed at him nevertheless._

_"You know that Reg wouldn't want you..."_

_"Don't," Evan cut him off, voice ice cold and frightening even himself, Barty froze, "don't you dare tell me what he would want for me or wouldn't want. He is dead! He is dead and no one can bring him back, his life was stolen from him and he certainly hadn't wanted that!" He spit out and in Barty's eyes something flashed up that Evan didn't like, something that reminded him too much of his brothers and Bellatrix._

_"Yeah, he is dead, you think I forgot that for a second?" Barty hit right back at him verbally as well though, teeth grinding together. "Do you think you're the only one who lost him? I know you two had a deeper bond than the rest of us but that doesn't make me any less his friend. I'm pissed, too." Barty snapped at him and Evan winced for two completely different reasons._

_One part of him felt like an asshole because Barty had a point, he wasn't the only one who had lost Regulus, he wasn't the only one who was grieving._

_But, and that was maybe even the bigger part, he wasn't pissed, he wasn't angry, Evan was just in pain. He was confused and hurt and he needed answers not more violence._

_"None of that means though that we should lose sight of what Regulus stood for. Loyalty was always important to him, you know that better than me still." Barty pointed out and Evan looked over to the picture on his nightstand while Barty kept talking, two young boys grinning into the camera, Evan's arm around Regulus' skinny shoulders, drawing him closer as he said something that prompted the smaller but older boy to start laughing. "I'll let you grieve a while longer but then we need to focus on what comes next. Reg will leave a hole in our lives, can't deny that, it isn't fair that he was taken from us but we have to make people pay for it. It's clear it was that stupid Order, and only blood can pay for blood. So grieve, but then get yourself together, we need you. There is a good future for us in store if we show now that we are more dedicated than ever. Reg stood for those values, too, don't forget that, he wanted a better world as well. And until you can find the strength within yourself, just do it for him."_

_Blood for blood, it always came down to blood for blood._

_Why didn't have Barty any desire to find answers, to find out the truth over while Regulus had to die? Why was no one making a big deal out of this? Regulus hadn't just been anyone! With him the oldest magical pureblood family had now died out! Why did no one in their circles see what tragedy that was? Why was everyone so obsessed on letting violence be the answer when silence was more appropriate?_

_And for the first time Evan found himself thinking 'I can't do this anymore' and with just one look into Barty's passionate face he knew that he could never let his one remaining friend know that those words had ever flittered through his head._

_Someone here was more dedicated to the cause than the other._

_Someone was ready to die for the cause and Evan wasn't sure he liked that._

\--

Returning to Moscow was strange, he was too numb to feel anything different than just this weird out of body sensation. The man who was walking along the Red Square and then the corridors of the Ministry, it wasn't him, it was someone else. Evan's mind was a million miles away, what felt like million years ago already, even though **it** had only happened two days ago.

Two days ago when a routine mission had ended so horribly

Now, he was back in Moscow for the first time since their reassignment to being sleeper agents so long ago, the first time he was back in Moscow alone for even longer. He didn't even know this city anymore without... without Daniil at his side. Everything looked so strange and unknown and cold, and it would never go back to what it once was...

Because Daniil couldn't come back.

People came back from Death in Evan's life.

Regulus had proven that.

But Daniil hadn't died in some hidden place, he hadn't died out of sight and out of knowing he even had been in danger.

Daniil had died right in Evan's arms. Evan had felt that last breath against his own lips. He had felt how that blood had been seeping into his clothes.

Daniil was dead.

For good.

And once again, Evan was left with his life crumbled into pieces, only this time it felt so much more piercing still. He hadn't known Daniil as long as he had Regulus, he hadn't known Daniil as well as he had Regulus but their relationship had been different anyway. He had loved Daniil, not like a brother, not like a best friend, he had really come to love Daniil and now Daniil had died in his arms, looking up at him, knowing that the end for him was coming.

And now Evan was back in Moscow because Sergeij had ordered him there, everything felt so far away, hidden behind an unpenetrable fog and Evan didn't know how he could go on from losing someone a second time. How he could go on from not just losing a good friend but a partner, a loved one this time. Everything he had built himself up since leaving Britain and his past behind, since getting his head together and getting an actual life back, it was just crumbling apart in his hands like a sandcastle in a high tide; and he didn't have the strength or the knowledge on how to stop this castle from being destroyed by an unimaginable force.

Was this karma?

Was this finally the judgement on the crimes he had committed?

Had none of the atonement he had made mattered at all?

He had only wanted to do the right thing, to fight for what was right. To do good to equal out all the bad he had done when he had been too stupid to walk away from it and take his friends along.

When he reached the Department, he was immediately ushered into Sergeij's office by some of the agents on duty. No one said anything, either because they, too, didn't know what or because there just wasn't anything that could be said. Sergeij sat him down and handed him a glass of something but Evan didn't even feel the burn of it going down at the moment.

"I have made arrangements for the funeral," Sergeij began when he sat down again, Evan knew he was being watched, he just didn't have the energy to care. "I believe it would be in everyone's best interest to keep it small and private. In St.Petersburg, so you can visit whenever you want. I'm taking you off the rooster until you had time to recover, I hope you understand that."

"I do," Evan said completely toneless because he just simply didn't care about being taking off duty, he couldn't imagine going out again without Daniil anyway, no matter how long he had been hunting without him before their partnership got started. Frankly, he couldn't even imagine a life without Daniil right at this moment.

"Evan?" Sergeij called for his attention again, using his real name for the first time in ages, "we both know that Daniil didn't want to die, that the two of you had a lot of things still planned but I have seen Daniil grow from a wide eyed youth stepping into the Academy to the incredible hitwizard and agent he became. I know for certain that Daniil wouldn't want you to give up now."

There was a big part in Evan who wanted to lash out, who wanted to argue that Sergeij hadn't known Daniil at all, he had only known the agent, not the man. It was the same thing all over again, once more someone was telling him that a person wouldn't want him to give up, it was Regulus all over again. 'Daniil wouldn't want you to give up', but Daniil was dead, and dead people didn't want anything anymore, they were just dead.

There was redemption and forgiveness for the dead but not wants.

Dead people didn't have thoughts anymore, couldn't sent wishes or comfort to those they left behind.

Evan was alone, Daniil was gone.

He left Sergeij with promises made that they both knew were just lies said to fit the norm of how these situations were supposed to go, Evan didn't mean a word he said. He left Sergeij's office and the Ministry with no intentions at all, no goal in mind because what was he supposed to do now? Fate had once more taken everything from him, and he was more than just aware of it all being his fault, if he had paid more attention, if he had just been more insistent, if he had been more vigilant...

If only he had been faster.

But he hadn't.

He had been too slow, too blind, too late.

So he walked now, he walked and he walked and he walked, hood pulled deep into his face, his mind blank and empty and numb. At some point he apparated back to St.Petersburg, a miracle in itself that he managed to do so without splintering himself apart. He changed his appearance with a simple spell, didn't want to run into anyone who knew him, he hadn't done so in a very long time because there had been no need to.

He slipped into the magical alley and walked along the shops and the stores and the businesses and none of it matters. None of it. The people who walked around him, the kids laughing and playing. How could it matter when he had once more lost the purpose to keep going.

The first time around he had told himself that he wasn't going to give up because there had been answers to be found, there had been vengeance to be had. This time, he had been right there and Daniil's murderer was dead.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

And Evan wanted to be dead, too.

\--

Of course, that turned out to be the day where a familiar hand suddenly grabbed his arm, pushed him up against a wall and held a wand to his throat.

It was the day where Adrienna's burning eyes looked at him and gave him three reasons to keep holding on, to not give up.

Answers, vengeance, home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All caught up with Evan's past the next chapter will have us dive into plot and the future now


End file.
